Meet Kevin!
Kevin chose the major World Languages and Cultures at USF.
“When I was transferring from community college, I realized I didn’t want to spend my undergraduate years aiming for a career that can reap me the most money; money will come to me one way or another. What doesn’t come as easily as money is my time, so I decided I wanted to spend my time focusing on things that bring me joy; constantly learning, building upon my intelligence, critically thinking, and discovering how the world works. Learning about the vast languages and cultures that exist in multiple realms outside of myself — and how they’re developed, sustained, and experienced, is what drew me to the World Languages and Cultures program.”
Kevin’s noteworthy co-curricular activities:
- Full-time Crisis Counselor at DeafLEAD, a non-profit organization that provides crisis intervention services to Deaf, Hard of Hearing, Late-Deafened, DeafBlind, and Hearing individuals.
- Volunteer Liaison at AFS-USA Intercultural Programs, a non-profit international educational exchange program which works in compliance with the Department of States’ Exchange Visitor Program to promote public diplomacy.
- 2024 Payne Fellow in the USAID Donald M. Payne International Development Graduate Fellowship Program, a fellowship program that seeks to attract outstanding individuals who are interested in pursuing careers in the Foreign Service of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), working on the front lines of some of the most pressing global challenges of our times — poverty, hunger, injustice, disease, environmental degradation, climate change, conflict and violent extremism.
Kevin’s essential competencies to success:
- Communication
- Teamwork
- Leadership
- Critical Thinking
- Equity & Inclusion
- Professionalism
- Career & Self-Development
Overcoming challenges:
“I’ve been able to identify two academic obstacles that I’ve faced; learning a language with a sensory disability and not seeing enough of my own experiences reflected in the field of my academic studies. Learning a spoken language like Mandarin Chinese without a sign language interpreter in the classroom was definitely a challenge for me, as I was lacking access to learning in the classroom. However, with the support of my professors and instructors, I was able to succeed.
I also had challenges of not seeing my own experience reflected in the field of my academic studies, applied linguistics. I am Deaf and come from a Deaf family where we primarily used ASL, American Sign Language. The majority of my studies in Applied Linguistics focused on spoken languages and their structures and knowing that signed linguistics is often neglected in the general teaching of applied linguistics, I made efforts to curate my course projects to relate to sign language/linguistics in some way to educate my peers and bring about awareness.”
Accomplishments and achievements:
- 2023 iHeart Diversity Awards’ “Accessibull Ally Award” Recipient (Hosted by Office of Multicultural Affairs – University of South Florida)
- 2024 Donald M. Payne International Development Graduate Fellowship Program Recipient (United States Agency for International Development)
USF support that made a difference:
“Being the 2023 President and Re-founder of the ASL Bulls student organization at USF taught me so much about leadership, integrity, patience, and responsibility. Being one of the founding members of the Student-led Accessibility Task Force under Student Government taught me so much about disability advocacy, accessibility awareness, and disability pride. Faculty from the World Languages and Cultures Department, specifically Dr. Katherine Yaw, Qiong Morrison, and Dr. Özge Güney were incredibly supportive in my journey of pursuing the Payne Fellowship and applying for graduate school programs.”
Kevin’s advice to fellow Bulls: “Learn more about yourself, what you want for yourself, and go for it! The only person who is truly going to get you to where you need to be is yourself, this is your life — everyone else is just here to support in getting there. Find the balance in life; for every negative trait — also think about the positives, for every regret — also think about what you’re grateful for, for every fear you have — also think about the hopes. Something I heard once was, ‘sometimes, you can’t really think yourself into a new way of acting, so you have to act yourself into a new way of thinking.'”