50 Years To First Alumni Spotlight on Yanel Pinto

May 24, 2016

Yanel Pinto went from International Swimmer for Venezuela, to jewelry kiosk business woman, to boutique owner, to Graphic Design Entrepreneur. But what is even more amazing is that she did the majority of this after arriving in America with no mastery of the English language and no particular mentor to assist her along the way. What did assist Yanel was determination, enrollment at Santa Fe College in 2013, and graduating with a Graphics Design Technology degree in 2016.

When Yanel was only 14 years old when she started designing her own website to sell fashion clothing she made herself. "I started using Adobe programs to edit photos and create illustrations, so when I finished high school I realized that Graphic Design was what I wanted to do."

Asked why she choose to attend Santa Fe College, Yanel explained that she had been a professional swimmer when she received a scholarship from Gator Swim Club at The University of Florida. The coaches from the swim team recommended that she attend Santa Fe in order to take English classes because her dominant home language was Spanish and she needed to polish up a bit on her English.

"I later decided to stay on and finish my career as a Graphic Designer because I knew Santa Fe College offers one the best programs for that particular major." Yanel says that attending Santa Fe College helped her career out tremendously. She now has her own on-line Graphics Design company "Yanel Designs" and works for Gleim Publications, a Gainesville Florida based accounting and aviation company, as a designer for one of their best-selling books "CMA Accounting". "One of the best experiences I have had while attending Santa Fe College was having the opportunity to meet people from different cultures. Eventually I would like to move to Miami Florida and have my own fashion company for women's clothing and accessories".