Many people have hobbies. For some, it's classic cars. For Leticia Klemetz Aceves, it's languages.

"Some people collect stamps. I collect languages," she said, of the seven she speaks.

Klemetz Aceves has been studying at Brigham Young University for the past three years, and on Thursday she will be one of the thousands of graduates. She's earning a degree in linguistics with a minor in Scandinavian studies and university honors. She is even more unique because she's an international student (she's from Spain) and she has cystic fibrosis, a disease in which mucus clogs up some of the organs in the body, especially in the lungs and pancreas.

She doesn't tell people about her disease unless they need to know, and she says she doesn't like to be the center of attention unless it helps someone else.

"I'm glad to be in the spotlight if this is going to help other people dare to finish college," Klemetz Aceves said.

Diagnosed with cystic fibrosis as a baby (doctors told her mother she wouldn't live long), Klemetz Aceves's life is full of hurdles, but they don't stop her. "I'm really good at multitasking," she said.

She has to do breathing exercises and take medication five times a day -- a routine that consumes three hours. And her disease means she has to sleep eight hours every night or she gets sick. On top of that, she also reads scriptures, does homework and was part of a project that created a standard for quality in translation -- her honors project.

She helped edit the standard for clarity and mistakes. She interviewed professionals to see if the guide really helped, and used it to translate a children's book. Then she presented her findings at a conference.

Once she graduates, Klemetz Aceves said she will try to find work as a freelance translator -- she speaks Spanish, Swedish, English, German, Italian, French and biblical Hebrew. She said Russian is next.

Klemetz Aceves started learning languages early in life because she had to. Her mother speaks Spanish, but her father is Swedish. In order to communicate with her father's family, who only speaks Swedish, she started attending Swedish school at age 3. Until college, all of her education had been in Swedish.

Her professors say she is a good student and friendly.

Professor Alan Melby, with whom Klemetz Aceves has worked on her honors project, said, "She's an interesting mix of bubbly and serious."

Professor Christopher Oscarson described her as serious. "She's someone who has great expectations for herself."

Klemetz Aceves wants people to realize she is more than just her sickness.

"I just don't want people to think that I'm just a sick girl because I'm not," Klemetz Aceves said. Cystic fibrosis is a progressive disease and it is supposed to get worse as a person gets older, but Klemetz Aceves said she is getting better and better.

Most people don't notice she has cystic fibrosis, said professor Cynthia Hallen.

"You don't notice because she doesn't emphasize it," Hallen said.

Brittani Lusk can be reached at 344-2549 or at blusk@heraldextra.com.

BYU granted 6,285 degrees (4,496 will be in April, 1,789 were in December):

5,378 bachelor's degrees

717 master's degrees

190 doctoral degrees

Of those:

53.5 percent of graduates are male

46.5 percent are female

Average age of all graduates is 25

Youngest student receiving a bachelor's degree is 19 years old

The oldest graduate receiving a bachelor's degree is 61

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A1.