Alex Monteagudo will graduate with a double degree in economics and political science from Yale on Monday, May 18, 2026. Monteagudo is a Jacksonville native who will become a naval submarine officer after graduation. | Will Brown, Jacksonville Today
Published on May 13, 2026 at 12:19 pm
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The young man walked along a once-familiar road with his sister on a sunny spring afternoon. Palmetto trees were along their right; trailers stood on their left.
Prayers and perseverance have fueled Alex Monteagudo from a Phillips Highway trailer to the pinnacle of academia to the depths of oceans. Monteagudo will earn a degree in economics and political science from Yale when the Ivy League institution celebrates its 325th Commencement on Monday.
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Next week, Monteagudo will also be commissioned as a submarine warfare officer in the U.S. Navy. He will be stationed at Joint Base Charleston.
While many in New Haven look back at their four years in Connecticut, Monteagudo cannot resist remembering those who helped him on his journey to take the road less traveled by, one that has made all the difference in his life.
“There is a lot of forced reflection with senior year. I have to think about it,” Monteagudo says. “I don’t think about the four years. I think about high school, middle school and all the years with my family. I’m proud, mostly because of my parents. Because they were able to tough it out, I wouldn’t be able to stand like I have.”
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From Duval Schools to Ivy League
Monteagudo says longtime Stanton College Prep educator Brian Heggood made the advanced placement microeconomics course he taught in the spring 2022 semester fascinating enough that he wanted to pursue it in college.
Monteagudo learned about the humanity of all from a Holocaust survivor he met while a middle school student at Darnell-Cookman School of the Medical Arts.
He says learning Spanish at home and speaking it at school was initially a challenge. But, it allowed him to connect with other dual-language students, and serve as a Spanish translator at San Jose Elementary.
Austin Burleigh taught Monteagudo at Stanton. He recalled Alex as a high-performing student who was focused and scrappy with a sense of humor.
“It gives me hope that the American dream is still alive in some capacity,” Burleigh says. “For all the grim news, and signs of decline, it’s uplifting and improves morale. It makes me proud that we have the infrastructure in place for someone like Alex to succeed, advance, end up at Yale and become a commissioned officer. (Alex) was clearly raised right. His parents instilled values in him. He has the family, the focus, the work ethic and respects himself.”
Alex’s smile and surname came flooding back to Burleigh when Leslie Monteagudo was enrolled in his home room class this academic year. Leslie is a senior who will graduate from Stanton College Prep this month with a 4.3 weighted grade-point average.
Returning to their roots this spring, while her brother was in Jacksonville for spring break, allowed the Monteagudo siblings to walk through their old neighborhood. They mentioned playing soccer in the street, the children in the community and the adults who looked out for them.
“It definitely feels very emotional, if I think about it too hard, because it’s just the fact that my brother is about to graduate college and he’s going to be off in the Navy,” Leslie said in March. “I’m also planning to go to college. Knowing that this is, likely, one of the last times that we’ll be together and be able to reminisce on our childhood, it’s definitely emotional — for sure.”
Alex forged a road to higher education that Leslie will soon follow. The two are the first in their family to attend college in the United States.
“At my high school graduation, I was crying my face off,” Alex recalled. “My (older) brother never made it through high school. My parents didn’t go to college. Finishing high school is what my parents expected. Graduating college? This degree. It doesn’t seem real. Anytime I think about it, I cry.”
Alex’s initial dream was to attend the University of Florida. When he heard Stanton classmates mention their desire to attend Ivy League schools, he applied as well. Today, Monteagudo believes his volunteerism, and his self-described underprivileged background, are what convinced Yale to admit him.
New adventures in New Haven
Monteagudo considered a career in immigration law. Along the way, he pivoted toward military service.
In mid-2023, Monteagudo applied to join Yale’s nationally recognized Navy Reserve Officer Training Corps. He was accepted, three semesters after most midshipmen join the ROTC program. From the outset, he showcased uncommon leadership.
“I was a squad leader when he first joined,” fellow Midshipman Andrew Terkildsen recalled. “I went to his dorm room for his first inspection. I tossed out, ‘Do you know any of the military knowledge?’ He says, ‘Yeah, I’ve looked into it.’ He nailed it off the rip. He poured everything into the program and locked in from Day 1.”
Terkildsen is a midshipman from Middle America. Multiple generations of his family were military officers. Terkildsen knew he wanted to join that tradition long before he enrolled at Yale.
Terkildsen explains that most ROTC training takes place before 7 a.m. to accommodate a Yale schedule where classes are in the late morning and early afternoon. It’s not uncommon for professors to hold office hours in the evening.
“He is one of the most humble people you will ever meet,” Terkildsen says. “It’s hard to get any bragging out of him. He’s earned it. He could if he wanted.”
In Monteagudo’s case, the bragging is done on his behalf. This spring, he earned Yale’s Rear Adm. Frederick B. Warder Award. Every Navy ROTC program across America recognizes one graduating senior with the Warder Award in recognition of a future submarine officer who has displayed outstanding achievement and superior sustained performance.
Monteagudo has counseled underclassmen and served as co-president of Yale’s BlackGen Capital. The latter is a nonprofit that closes racial representation gaps in the finance industry by providing investment experience and access to corporate sponsors and career opportunities.
“I’ve been lucky enough to be in situations where students are on top of things,” Monteagudo says. “I assume they had their parents help them out. I needed someone to teach me. … I can’t stand people who gatekeep. You want to leave people better than you were. I have access to information. You might as well help people.”
Faith and family
Monteagudo may be the first in his family to graduate from an American university. His undergraduate years also provided a unique opportunity to visit relatives.
In 2024, Monteagudo was a part of a dozen-person pilgrimage to Mexico.
His journey was the cover story for the fall 2024 edition of STM, the magazine for the Catholic Chapel and Center at Yale.
The edition spotlighted “the beauty of diversity within faith” inside the Catholic Church.
It may be fitting the Yale chapel is named after St. Thomas More, an English theologian and saint who refused to compromise his values at the behest of a gluttonous king. More, like Monteagudo, valued personal integrity and commitment to family.
“I landed five days before the STM Pilgrimage to visit family in Toluca and Michoacan. It was the first time I had ever seen my aunts, uncles and cousins and the first time I had visited my grandparents’ home,” Monteagudo wrote in STM magazine. “I arrived to prayers of gratitude that I was able to visit after twenty years, and no conversation passed without a religious reference.”
The journey allowed Monteagudo to visit the Basílica de Nuestra Señora de los Remedios.
“It was nice to see where my parents grew up and be driven around by my uncle and my cousins,” Monteagudo recalled this month. “We went to a taco place where someone served my dad, when he was a taxi driver, and younger than I was.”
It’s impossible for Monteagudo to explain the impact of the sacrifices his parents have made. His initial response to the query was to ask: What haven’t they done?
Alex reflected on his journey, and the odyssey made by generations before him, inside a bookstore on the Southside this spring. Like many Jacksonville natives, he wore a teal pullover on the cool morning.
“This is my city. I love this place. No other place has given my family the opportunities they had. The fact they chose here means something.”
Freelance investigative journalist Sophia Cardona contributed to this story.
