ORLANDO, Fla. — When Sierra Holmes walks the University of Central Florida campus, the first-year student likes what she sees.

But while Holmes is pleased to watch diverse people converge onto the commons, she’s working for an even better rate of minority enrollment.

Holmes is a young woman inspired to share her academic success, by lifting others up and encouraging them to go for their dream careers, too.

According to Data USA, UCF’s 2019 student enrollment was 10.7% Black, 26.8% Hispanic, and 46.8% white.

Holmes is reaching out to minorities who have never been able to dream of attending a university like hers.

Panels and forum events like one Holmes participated in this spring at Evans High School are meant to connect students with college aid and answer questions to get them motivated to plan and achieve higher education.

“So, seeing somebody that looks like them and represents like who they are also, doing those same things, gives them that motivation to go out and do those same things or even better,” Holmes said.

Evans’ Kelly Astro, one of the administrators coordinating with Holmes, added that, “It makes all the difference in the world when students in high school are able to see themselves in students in college."

“It becomes so much more real to them," she said. "It’s ‘I can do that, too,' and it allows them to ask all of those kinds of questions that they may not be comfortable asking adults who are coming to recruit for their higher institutions of education, the real nitty-gritty types of things students want to know about."

Holmes said her inspiration first came from an internship at a state representative’s office, “always creating opportunities for people that didn’t know those opportunities existed.”

Holmes also founded a new club at her former high school, “Black Leaders of Tomorrow.” Now, she’s a student senator and Black Caucus Chair at UCF.

Holmes said she hopes to one day become a lawyer and eventually a politician. Aside from achieving good grades to accomplish those goals, however, she keeps other aspiring students in mind.