Ammar Ahmed completed his master’s degree in mechanical engineering and is staying in the Dallas area to work for Texas Instruments Inc.

“I have a job lined up,” Ahmed said, beaming as he and his family lined up for photos.

“I also want to let people know that I am Sudanese,” Ahmed said. “There is a war going on there now. I want to use this degree to give happiness and success back to my family.”

Will Heitman, computer engineering graduate, gave a final whoosh outside the Davidson-Gundy Alumni Center.

Heitman worked alongside Dr. Justin Ruths as team lead of the Nova autonomous driving group.

“I needed to identify what was most important to do with my time,” Heitman said when offering advice to undergraduate students in February during a panel discussion.

“There’s always more to do than what we can accomplish. But I have really enjoyed being an undergraduate researcher – that was important to me.”

A gift from a fellow member of Sigma Lambda Gamma, a multicultural sorority, helped Chesney “Ace” Cherry celebrate graduating.

The gift: a black stole with Greek sorority letters in shocking pink, one of the organization’s colors.

“I am the only one with a black stole,” Cherry said.

The stole complimented her black fingernails and pink hair. Cherry had been dying her hair pink years before she joined the inclusive sorority.

“It definitely helped me be more excited,” she said.

Cherry graduated as a dual major to make herself more marketable.

“I started as computer engineering and really like the hardware part of it so I added in electrical engineering,” she said.

Roxanne Sanchez decorated her mortarboard with googly eyes of varying sizes and a quote from the movie “Everything Everywhere All at Once” which was released last year and won numerous awards.

Sanchez said the quote inspires her to “appreciate life and all you have been through in life and that everything you have done has led to this moment.”

Sanchez, who earned a bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering, has a job lined up at MedCAD, a medical tech company based in Dallas, as a quality engineer.

Something she is appreciative of that led to this moment of graduating?

“The friends I made at the Department,” she said of faculty and staff members in bioengineering.