“I’ve always taken pictures of things that captured my eye,” Doleman says. But the idea of constantly being away from home shooting news events didn’t appeal to her. Still, the 2010 Beacon College graduate’s curiosity was piqued, so Doleman started posting her photos on social media — “and people really liked them,” she says. So did a professional photography company in South Florida, which hired her as a second shooter for their wedding business.
Scott Wilbur
After graduating from Beacon, Wilbur attended Marymount University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in multidisciplinary studies. During the summers, he taught for free and “decided I’d do the whole teaching certification thing.”
Now he’s helping clients of all ages and disabilities, “teaching people how to deal with life and get what they want,” he says. Some of those clients are highly paid engineers and computer scientists.
Rosalyn Johnson
After graduating from Beacon, Johnson immediately began work on her master’s degree in mental health counseling at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale. After earning her graduate degree, she returned to Leesburg for five years.
During that time, she worked as a therapist at a local behavioral health center, fulfilling the state requirements to become a licensed mental health counselor.
Phillip Gottdenker
“I loved going to Beacon,” he says. “It taught me how to communicate, how to be more patient, and how to thrive in life. There was always someone there if you had questions about anything.”
While at Beacon, Gottdenker took many introductory computer classes and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in liberal arts and minors in computers and business.
Nathan Plung
Plung emerged from Beacon College with a degree and with self-confidence that has enabled him to pursue his twin passions of art and disability advocacy.
Boldly approaching galleries with his portraits, and fearlessly enrolling in graduate school: Those are the actions of a guy who knows he can succeed.
Melissa Robinson
“The work I’m doing now is dealing with children with varying exceptionalities,” Robinson says. Her students’ disabilities range from behavioral problems, attention deficit disorder (ADD) and learning disabilities to autism and Down Syndrome.
Robinson says the best part of her job is “seeing the smiles on their faces” and watching the progress they make as a result of her efforts.
Howard Mass
The 2007 Beacon College graduate is a partner in the sports website realgm.com, which offers daily news, statistics, and message forums related to sports. As a site administrator, Mass also oversees some of the website’s sections, writes his own thoughts on the forums, and contributes a column — all while working from the comfort of his Longwood, Fla. home.
Hannah Walk
But she couldn’t envision a career that would combine her interests — until she became a technical writer for Yardi, a global property management software company.
“Technical writing is kind of a career no one really thinks about,” Walk says. “I did just kind of fall into it” — and she’s glad she did.
“I like that we’re very driven to serve our clients and very innovative,” says Walk, who works in the company’s Atlanta office.
Davian Isom
Noting that Beacon College sparked a strong desire to help others, Isom says that his current job and his future as a social worker fulfill that desire.
“Interacting with students from all across the U.S. and other countries,” he says, “allowed me to understand that, at some point, you’re going to have to pay it forward and fight for people.”
Arun Kapoor
Within two months of graduating, Kapoor was working for a company that had a contract with the Social Security Administration to help disabled individuals find jobs. At the same time, Kapoor attended a program on federal contracting.
After four years with the Defense Logistics Agency, Kapoor feels confident about his job knowledge, but leaves room down the line for his entrepreneurial spirit to express itself.