Myesha Rahman sat in a semiconductor cleanroom at the University of Central Florida, hands moving with precision as she worked with specialized fabrication equipment—a moment that felt impossible just years earlier when her parents, who had immigrated from Bangladesh without access to college themselves, encouraged their daughter to dream bigger. Today, Rahman is a product marketing engineer at Texas Instruments' Dallas headquarters, but her journey from Lake Worth Beach to that achievement traces back to a single decision made by her high school: attending Santaluces Community High School and excelling through sheer determination.
As a first-generation American raised by immigrant parents who deeply valued education despite their own limited college opportunities, Rahman understood early that her schooling was a family investment. She rose to become valedictorian of her graduating class at Santaluces, an achievement that opened a crucial door: the Bright Futures Scholarship, which made it possible for her to attend UCF without incurring any college debt.
"Bright Futures gave my family peace of mind," Rahman reflects. "My parents didn't have to worry about how we were going to pay for college. That changed everything."
That financial relief transformed more than just her family's peace of mind—it liberated Rahman to fully engage with her studies. Her path to engineering had been seeded earlier through her high school's Cambridge Advanced International Certificate of Education (AICE) program, which exposed her to careers in architecture, construction and engineering and deepened her curiosity about the field. Once at UCF, she committed herself to rigorous coursework and hands-on learning, spending significant time in the university's semiconductor cleanroom mastering the highly specialized tools and contamination control protocols central to precision fabrication.
Her dedication caught the attention of Texas Instruments. Rahman was selected as one of just 30 UCF students accepted into the company's Undergraduate Fellows program, a competitive honor that led to an internship at Texas Instruments' Dallas headquarters. There, working with advanced equipment and confronting real-world engineering challenges, something clicked. "I knew during my internship that this is what I wanted to do," she says. "It made everything feel real." By August 2025, she had accepted a full-time position with the company.
Yet Rahman's accomplishment extends far beyond her own success. She co-founded and served as public relations director for UCF's Women in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science club, an organization dedicated to opening STEM pathways for younger girls from underrepresented backgrounds—the kind of mentor figure she wished she'd had growing up.
"I didn't always have someone to talk to about engineering growing up, so I wanted to be that person for someone else," she explains.
Since 1988, the Bright Futures Scholarship Program—funded by the Florida Lottery—has sent over one million students to college and contributed billions to education. For Rahman, it was more than tuition coverage. It was permission to focus entirely on her growth, to pursue hands-on research without financial desperation, and ultimately to graduate ready to lift others up. Her story reflects what becomes possible when the barriers to education fall away.