Hi! My name is Stefan, and I'm one semester away from graduating from New College of Florida with degrees in Environmental Studies and Music. After seven years of navigating family loss, medical challenges, and financial setbacks, I'm reaching out to ask for help crossing the finish line.
What I Need:
I need $3,000 to clear my remaining balance from Fall 2025 ($1,875) and enroll in my thesis-only semester ($750), plus basic meal expenses while I complete my work. Without paying this balance, New College won't allow me to register—meaning I can't graduate despite having completed all my coursework.
How I Got Here:
My path to this moment has been long and winding. I started at the University of Florida in 2018 as an Aerospace Engineering major—the "practical" choice that looked good and competitive with my peers on paper, but never quite fit who I was. I had the scholarships (National Merit Finalist, Benacquisto, Florida Bright Futures, Pell Grant), I was in the Honors Program, I was even in the Undergraduate Research Program. In my head, I was doing everything I was supposed to do. But when COVID hit and I took medical leave, I had to step back and actually ask myself what I wanted from my education. Clearly, something wasn't right.
During that time away, I rediscovered my love for music through online courses from Berklee. It felt like a sign that I'd been looking for: some intrinsic motivation. I tried returning to UF with a broader Mechanical Engineering major and Jazz Studies minor, but the isolation of online learning during the pandemic broke me. I took another emergency leave and got diagnosed with ADHD as well as depression-related mental health complications. Quite honestly, I wasn't sure I'd ever be able to finish school.
What saved me was landing work as a Senior Instructor at Karate America in Gainesville, where I was welcomed as a Second-Degree Black Belt. Master Robert Creed gave me a chance to rejoin that community which had previously given me the structure I needed to be present enough to see what really mattered.
During that year, someone very close to me told me about New College, where students could design their own programs and learning was actually collaborative. In Spring 2022, I transferred to Sarasota to heal and start over.
Finding My Purpose:
At New College, I finally had the freedom to explore everything I cared about without being shoved into a box. My advisor, Steve Shipman, encouraged me to take courses across Natural Sciences, Environmental Studies, Music, German, Creative Writing—whatever sparked my curiosity. I spent an Independent Study Project in Berlin studying the politics and culture of memory, and the next helping build New College's own Multimedia Production Studio. I interned at the NCF Coastal and Marine Observatory, learning GIS and field research methods that became central to my work.
But the most transformative experience was the Caples Educational Gardens. Even with minimal gardening experience, I was trusted by the Council of Green Affairs (CGA) to become Organic Garden Coordinator and lead that year's Fall and Spring practicums. That garden became the most genuine collaborative learning experience of my life. Students and I rehabilitated the Organic Garden together, taught each other, and created something truly alive. As a Bolivian immigrant, I felt like I'd reconnected with something that had always been innate: the intersection of nature and community. That experience led me to serve as Chair of Green Affairs for the past year, working to preserve the CGA for future students.
When my grandfather passed at the end of 2023, not long after my grandmother, the Caples community held me up. Even as I struggled to keep up with coursework and felt myself slipping, they continuously encouraged me and helped me feel supported.
The Setback:
Despite that support, I failed academically. For two semesters, I didn't satisfy my contract requirements. New College placed me on academic probation and terminated my financial aid, even though I qualified as a Pell Grant recipient. I petitioned twice for reinstatement, but was twice denied.
My family helped as much as they could. Some gracious folks in NCF administration helped me secure Completion and Retention Grants. The Novo Collegian Alliance gave me a large grant for a meal plan one semester. But eventually, those resources dried up.
Where I Am Now:
Last semester—Fall 2025—I did it. I successfully satisfied my contract requirements and completed all the degree requirements for both Music and Environmental Studies. I proved to myself I could finish what I started, despite not having any significant institutional support.
Now all that's left is my thesis: an ecoacoustics project documenting the living archive of the Caples Educational Gardens. It's a project that combines field recording, spatial analysis using GIS, oral histories, and environmental science to document the living soundscape of this place that gave me so much. Through all the faculty turnover and chaos, I've been given the chance to create something that encapsulates the joy I've experienced as a New College student and preserves it for the people who'll come after me.
My thesis committee is ready. The project is designed and I am working hard to complete it. The only thing standing between me and graduation is money.
To pay for Fall 2025, I entered a payment plan and made the first payment—50% of what I owed. But I couldn't make the second payment. New College won't let me register for my thesis-only semester until I clear that balance, no matter how ready I am to finish.
What This Means to Me:
Graduating represents more than a degree to me. It's proof that when life knocks you down—when you lose the people you love, when you lose your financial footing, when you lose your sense of direction—you can still find your way back. New College gave me the freedom to discover that my engineering background, my love of music and community, and my passion for environmental work could all exist together in one meaningful project.
The New College alumni network has already shown me incredible generosity, and I'm eager to join that community as a graduate.
Your support, whatever you can offer, brings me closer to that moment. Thank you for reading my story and for considering a contribution to this final stretch of my journey.
— Stefan
The Details:
$1,875 to clear Fall 2025 balance
$750 for thesis-only semester registration
~$375 for meal expenses during thesis completion