{"id":25857,"date":"2020-12-09T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-12-09T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.tarleton.edu\/news\/first-gen-tarleton-grad-to-share-her-journey-in-commencement-address\/"},"modified":"2025-10-07T09:23:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-07T14:23:13","slug":"first-gen-tarleton-grad-to-share-her-journey-in-commencement-address","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/first-gen-tarleton-grad-to-share-her-journey-in-commencement-address\/","title":{"rendered":"First-gen Tarleton Grad to Share Her Journey in Commencement Address"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE<\/p>\n<p>Wednesday, December 9, 2020<\/p>\n<p>STEPHENVILLE, Texas &mdash;&nbsp;Alexis Soriano takes seriously the responsibility of being a first-generation college student.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;There&rsquo;s definitely pressure,&rdquo; said the featured commencement speaker at Saturday&rsquo;s graduation ceremonies, set for 10 a.m. at Memorial Stadium.<\/p>\n<p>That&rsquo;s what she&rsquo;ll talk about in her speech.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m the first one to do it, so that means I have a responsibility to do well for my younger sibling. That&rsquo;s my motivation. She can see that if I did it, she can do it, too.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Alexis will be awarded her bachelor&rsquo;s degree in criminal justice and will leave behind a legacy of academic success.<\/p>\n<p>Studying at Tarleton&rsquo;s Fort Worth campus, she transferred from Tarrant County College with associate&rsquo;s degrees in general studies and criminal justice, earning several scholarships, including the President&rsquo;s Circle, Texan Spirit and Dick Smith scholarships, as well as the Texas Ranger Law Enforcement Scholarship.<\/p>\n<p>The Saginaw High School graduate was accepted at UT Arlington, but finances steered her to TCC.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Once I was there, I started looking at transfer universities, and Tarleton seemed like the best fit.<\/p>\n<p>They were able to take all my credits, and they&rsquo;re known for their criminal justice program.<\/p>\n<p>It was a great choice. The faculty there are really loving and understanding.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Alexis&rsquo; time at Tarleton lived up to her expectations as she prepared for a career in law enforcement.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;It was a great experience because of the type of professors we have who have served, not only as educators but as motivators,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;They guided me into their life experiences. They built a greater passion in me.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>She hopes to turn her diploma into a career working narcotics, special tactics or in a gang unit.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve already lined up several agencies I&rsquo;d love to work for. I&rsquo;m doing my internship with the Arlington Police Department, and I&rsquo;m on good terms with them.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>With her bachelor&rsquo;s secured, Alexis is continuing her higher education. She has applied for grad school and has her curriculum planned with an eye toward completing her master&rsquo;s within a year.<\/p>\n<p>Tarleton, founding member of The Texas A&amp;M University System, provides a student-focused, value-driven education marked by academic innovation and a dedication to transform today&rsquo;s scholars into tomorrow&rsquo;s leaders. It offers degree programs to more than 14,000 students at Stephenville, Fort Worth, Waco, Midlothian, RELLIS Academic Alliance in Bryan, and online, emphasizing real-world learning experiences that address societal needs while maintaining its core values of tradition, integrity, civility, excellence, leadership and service.<\/p>\n<p>Contact: Phil Riddle<br \/>817-484-4415<br \/><a href=\"mailto:priddle@tarleton.edu\">priddle@tarleton.edu<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Alexis Soriano takes seriously the responsibility of being a first-generation college student.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":25858,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[423,425],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academics-research","category-campus-community"],"acf":{"image":null},"author_meta":{"display_name":"keegan","author_link":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/author\/keegan-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2\/"},"featured_img":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/65\/2021\/11\/image-265-300x200.jpg","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/category\/academics-research\/\" class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">Academics &amp; Research<\/a>","<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/category\/campus-community\/\" class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">Campus &amp; Community<\/a>"],"unlinked":["<span class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">Academics &amp; Research<\/span>","<span class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">Campus &amp; Community<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":0,"relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 5 years ago","modified":"Updated 6 months ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on December 9, 2020","modified":"Updated on October 7, 2025"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on December 9, 2020 12:00 am","modified":"Updated on October 7, 2025 9:23 am"},"featured_img_caption":"Smiling person in front of an American flag.","series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25857"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25857\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53973,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25857\/revisions\/53973"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}