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Network
Jeacovy Gayle, Software Development Major, CEO, Gayle Technologies If there’s a plus to running your own web and software development business while going to school full time — aside from the income, of course — it’s the fact that you can largely set your own work hours. Which is exactly what Jeacovy Gayle did, often coding late into the night at local coffee shops in order to pay the bills and still have time for school during the day. Five years ago, Gayle, who moved with his parents to Central Florida from Jamaica when he was 7, couldn’t have foreseen either the growth of his company, Gayle Technologies, or his degree in software development. “College wasn’t really on my mind,” he says now. “You go to school, you get good grades, you come out, you get a job. My parents weren’t alumni of some college that they wanted me to go to.” Still, he ended up giving it a shot, enrolling at Valencia College to study information technology. It was only two years, he figured, and then he could get to work. That led to an internship where Gayle learned more about software development and was encouraged to pursue a bachelor’s degree. “It’s always been the people I’ve met along the way that have helped,” he says, “getting that knowledge and just growing my network.” Now Gayle is ready to focus on his company, bringing on more developers to expand his range of enterprise applications, which include a legal case management solution and an aviation-specific keyboard app for pilots’ preflight tablets. After that? “I’m interested in machine learning and artificial intelligence,” he says. “I’ll be looking into graduate school a year or two down the line.” I
“It’s always been the people I’ve met along
After School
Ricci Bachar, English Literature Major, Fourth Grade Teacher, Aspiring Graduate Student When Ricci Bachar left UCF after two years, her father worried she’d never go back. “I switched majors twice and realized I hadn’t really found my passion,” she says. She put college on hold,
and then life took over. She married her high school sweetheart and had two boys, now 6 and 9. She began working as a substitute teacher and as a caregiver for her father, who
“They know that after we finish our school day, I go home and study.
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