The University of Florida student overcame a life-threatening illness and now wants to bring hope to other young cancer patients.
JERICHO, NY, September 17, 2025 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Joshua Cottle, a biology major at the University of Florida, has won the 2024 Friedman & Simon Academic Scholarship. This $1,500 award will help support Cottle as he pursues a pre-med track with the goal of studying pediatric oncology.
From Cancer Patient to Aspiring Med Student
In his winning essay, Cottle describes his harrowing battle with large-cell lymphoma, which he was diagnosed with as a high school freshman. Though he initially doubted his ability to recover, Cottle found a new purpose through social media.
"I began to upload videos documenting my journey to YouTube," Cottle writes. "Scrolling through the positive comments from both interested people and fellow patients[,] I was simultaneously elated by the positivity and made melancholy by the heartfelt comments relating their own experiences to mine. I finally felt a little less alone in my skin."
A Family of Fighters
In both his essay and his scholarship winner questionnaire, Cottle describes how his family has been an invaluable source of strength and support throughout his life.
"My biggest inspiration is my grandfather," who worked his way out of a Puerto Rican slum to become a doctor. "He didn't let his life experiences or the cards he was dealt when he was born hinder him from achieving his goals."
When Cottle began feeling ill but before he knew what was wrong, "my mother inspired me to continue my coursework, always assuring me that I would overcome my illness."
Once they finally had a diagnosis, both he and his mother "were speechless" but also "strangely relieved" to finally know what was wrong and what could be done about it.
Using His Personal Experiences to Help Others Overcome Similar Challenges
By December 2021, a year after his initial diagnosis, Cottle had made a full recovery. He began to look to the future and consider what he might do with his life.
"I have come to realize that there is no greater joy for me than to inspire hope in others in the most despairing of situations," Cottle says in his essay.
He is already a member of his school's Health Science Student Organization, and his biggest goal—"my endeavor, my dream"—is to use his own dark experience with cancer to support other young people going through a similar journey. As he says at the end of his essay, Cottle now strives to "give of myself unto others who are going through something similar; to be the light in their life."
About the Friedman & Simon Academic Scholarship
Every year, Friedman & Simon Injury Lawyers L.L.P. presents a scholarship to a student whose academic achievements, goals, and life experience represent the same values held by our personal injury law firm: a commitment to giving back to the community and supporting others in need.
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