Aside from wanting to be a professional soccer player, which is the primary goal of every young boy growing up in Brazil, Francisco never really thought about his future. He spent his childhood dodging challenges at home; family members displayed confusing and even abusive behaviors that he was too young to recognize were symptoms of mental illness. If Francisco dreamt of anything it was being in a place where people were calm and kind and rational.
He enjoyed learning, but homework wasn’t easily done at home. It was discouraging, and by high school, Francisco would often miss classes trying to chase down a few hours of tranquility. Going by his high school's attendance policy, he should have failed three years in a row. But even without showing up for classes Francisco had higher grades than most of his classmates. And so, by way of a generous oversight, he was allowed to graduate.
Francisco knew that whatever he did next, it would be far away. He knew nothing about the United States, but his uncle had lived in Florida for a short while and offered him a breadcrumb. “If you can get to Gainesville, around the University of Florida, there are good people. Contact some churches there. They will help you.” With nothing more to go on than that, he left Brazil.
His uncle was right. There are good people in Gainesville. Though he struggled with poverty, initially sharing a one-bathroom house with seven other people, Francisco soon learned where to get help. Yes, churches. He also enrolled at the English Language Institute at UF (ELI), a program that prepares international students to study at colleges and universities. There he began to learn English, and fell in love with the UF campus. “I was bewildered by this beauty that I had only ever seen in movies,” he recalls.
It was the ELI staff who introduced Francisco to Santa Fe College, where he found financial opportunities that UF did not offer. He found something else there, too, something he didn’t realize would become so important – mentors.
“When I joined Santa Fe College I was exposed to what I like to think of as these few one in a million professors and advisors who on their own were able to change my life and my mindset about things. Especially when I was confused, when I was afraid, when I was making mistakes, they were there. For that I am forever grateful.”
One of those mentors was Bobby Hom, professor, advisor and coordinator of SF’s Honors Program. “With Bobby I felt a sense of safety right away, that I could open up and talk with him about my classes and also my personal life. It felt so different compared to how it was back home.” Bobby would be instrumental in helping Francisco to apply for scholarships and career building internships, but before he had even finished his first semester at SF, Francisco got some very, very bad news.
Francisco was diagnosed with diffuse large B cell lymphoma, one of the most aggressive types of blood cancer. He was admitted to UF Health (Shands), where for fear of losing his scholarships and his visa, he never stopped studying.
“A doctor came in to my hospital room, looking like – are you doing your math?! Your college algebra homework?! How can you? You should be resting! And I said doctor, I have to, or else I’ll not get this scholarship. And I remember him looking like . . . [wow]. It was the first time that someone looked at me with some sort of admiration. I liked this reaction.”
From his hospital room, in between chemotherapy sessions, Francisco managed to earn straight A’s. He tapped into something inside himself, a determination that knew no limits. For the rest of his time at SF, he maintained that 4.0 and was a model student in every class.
Living and learning in a hospital setting steered Francisco on a course that pointed straight toward medical research. With Bobby’s guidance, he completed his prerequisites for pre-med and volunteered with a community engagement program at UF that aims to bridge the gaps between health care and health research.
In the summer of 2017, out of 650 qualified candidates, Francisco was one of 35 interns accepted into a research program at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute. He was the only one accepted from a community college. The institute was so impressed with him, they offered him a job after the internship had ended. It was during this time, while he was living in Boston – working at the institute and saving money – that Francisco got the phone call that would change his life. It was Bobby and Jackson Sasser, the president of Santa Fe College, letting him know he had been awarded the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation’s Undergraduate Transfer Scholarship. With $40,000 a year for the next three years, Francisco would be able to finish his bachelor’s degree pretty much anywhere he wanted to go.
There are good people in Gainesville, and in fall of 2018, Francisco returned to be counted among them, finally enrolling full time at the University of Florida.
