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A Journey Off the Beaten Path

Liliana Ocon traveled a different route to earn her architecture degree at Texas Tech.

Por Texas Tech University

28 de July de 2023

For Liliana Ocon, her path to educational excellence has simply been what it has been. One day at a time. One foot in front of the other until the final destination is reached.

It was the only way. Some days smooth. Some days perilous. Some days difficult. Some days tranquil.

It was math of the most basic kind. One determined young woman + two countries + one foot in each = success.

Ocon’s most recent accomplishment, but certainly not expected to be her last, was earning a bachelor’s degree through Texas Tech University’s Huckabee College of Architecture program in El Paso.

“I am super proud,” she said, “and I am really, really happy. I was talking to some of my friends the other day about how this time has passed so fast. It was just a blink.”

The days have flown by for Ocon, who lives in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, and regularly made the 8-mile (13-kilometer) trek across the international bridge to complete her long-held dream of a college education.

“I think, looking back, there were a lot of challenges,” she said. “At first, crossing every day didn’t seem like a challenge, but then after talking to my professors, they were like, ‘Yes, it is a challenge because it’s not something all students have to do.’ It is a unique thing we do here on the border, and maybe this was harder than I thought.”

The Texas Tech program has a 2+2 articulation agreement with El Paso Community College where students attend the first two years and earn their associate degree before transferring to Texas Tech to complete their studies.

“The program is 13 years old and started as a collaboration with the community college architects in town who were teaching there,” said Ersela Kripa, an associate professor who has been part of the program’s faculty for eight years and director for the past three. “They realized those students were stopping at an associate degree because they couldn’t afford to leave town or leave their families to continue for a Bachelor of Science in Architecture.

“They came to Texas Tech and said, ‘There’s a great opportunity here to offer higher education to all of these students who are just sort of trapped in the border region because they lack resources.”

The idea ultimately gained traction with former dean of the college Andrew Vernooy and soon was formalized as a unique offering in El Paso with seven students comprising the inaugural class. The program has continued to grow with roughly 60 students expected this fall.

“It meets Texas Tech’s mission to bring education to underserved communities,” Kripa said. “Now, 13 years later, we have a really robust articulation agreement that when students are accepted at El Paso Community College, it’s understood they will make it to Texas Tech.”

Which is how Ocon eventually found her way to the doors of Texas Tech.

“When I was in high school, there was this program for architecture that I got into,” she said. “That was the starting point because I liked the class, and my teacher influenced me a lot, so that’s how I got interested in architecture.

“I was told about the program at El Paso Community College that is linked to Texas Tech, and that’s how I entered. I wanted to move to Lubbock at first, but I found that was going to cost a lot of money, so it was easier for me to just stay here with my parents.”

Ocon is binational, spending significant time in Juarez as well as El Paso. There were periods in her life when she moved across the border and lived with relatives and other times when she lived with her parents and traveled back and forth for class.

“I think now it’s not as hard maybe as it was before,” she said. “I don’t know if that’s because now I drive, and it’s easier to move from one place to the other, but it also is kind of hard because sometimes I feel like I am mostly in Juarez.

“In high school, I lived with relatives in El Paso. I would stay the whole week there and go to school. On weekends, I would come back to Juarez with my parents. That was the process every week.”

The routine was not unfamiliar as she had tried a similar approach earlier in her life.

“When I was in elementary, I tried to live with relatives, but I was really emotional without my parents,” she said. “When my parents would visit, I cried every time they left. Even in high school, it was still hard because it was a complete change of my everyday life.”

Her parents have not only been her biggest encouragers, but also her most precious influence, and it is their steadfast support that coaxed her to pursue her dreams.

“Everyone in my house is an engineer,” she said. “I am the one who decided not to follow. The starting point was at an open house in high school where they had all their student projects. That really got me interested in how they managed to assemble things like miniature houses. I wanted to give it a try. I didn’t know what I was going to do for the future, but I really liked that.”

One might expect a few close calls and worrisome moments connected to this daily sojourn, especially based on many of the news accounts detailing a potent cocktail of drug cartel dominance, international border tension and always-percolating danger. Ocon said that was not the case, at least for her, although she added a qualifier.

“To be honest, I don’t know if I am just used to it,” she said of her back-and-forth life on the U.S.-Mexico border. “It never felt dangerous. There were also times when I would cross the bridge downtown, and there were a lot of people there. That’s where you hear about more crime.

“It really wasn’t like I would feel insecure. I just would take more care of my things. Usually, my parents would drop me off near the bridge, and I would just cross.”

Ocon is not the only student working on her education in this way. A number of binational students regularly move back and forth from a home and family in Juarez to learn in programs such as this one offered by Texas Tech.

It is a vastly different experience from that of most college students. There are a variety of hurdles to overcome, including language and commuting to class.

“I have taken English classes basically all my life,” Ocon said. “But that’s not the same as being in El Paso speaking English all the time. In high school, I started speaking more. I still need to learn a lot more and express myself more.”

Texas Tech has worked to address those challenges, striving to make the program more accessible. The architecture program holds its classes in a functioning train station downtown within walking distance from the border. Many faculty members are also bilingual, making concepts easier to grasp and providing linguistic familiarity to students.

“All of my teachers have had a lot of patience,” Ocon said. “They understand that language can be a barrier for other students at the same point as me. It helps that so many of them speak Spanish, so we can sometimes just switch languages.”

Ocon has expanded her credentials by working as a research assistant in POST (Project for Operative Spatial Technologies), the Huckabee College of Architecture research center in El Paso, even though it took some persuasion to get her interested in the position.

“Lily is one of our best students,” Kripa said. “We see she has just incredible talent in her studio and design work, so we announced we were hiring a student as a research assistant. She did not apply, and I was curious about that so I told her we would love to work with her, but she didn’t think she could make it in the job in this really humble way.”

Ocon got the job and since has helped with several projects, including work for the El Paso Boys and Girls Clubs.

“It’s given her a chance to take the lead on a project, not give her any design constraints and just have fun,” Kripa said. “It’s keeping her engaged, asking for her opinion, giving her a seat at the table and having her talk to clients directly. As a result, we’ve seen her really thrive.”

The architecture program in El Paso is one of many points of pride for Texas Tech. This fall, it will add a master’s degree in historic preservation to its portfolio of offerings, expanding and continuing a focus on meeting the unique needs and educational aspirations of the community it serves.

“Students have a fast-pass card to cross the border,” Kripa said. “Still, a lot depends on what is going on with the immigration situation, which can impact crossing. It can go from moving smoothly to being stuck for hours because suddenly there’s thousands of others who need to be processed, so I’ve been impressed by Lily’s ability to navigate through that and always show up on time for class because how do you even predict what might happen?”

Perhaps that punctuality comes with the cadence of repetition, spending time, developing routines and being a stickler for tuning out distractions and for being curious about the world.

There has rarely been a typical day. Ocon always got up early anticipating it might be a long wait to cross the border and attend class. For most of her time at Texas Tech, she walked to El Paso from Juarez. During her final semester, family members purchased a home in El Paso, making the trip a little easier to navigate.

“I wouldn’t know if there was a long line or if the lanes were slow and I wanted to make sure I was on time,” she said. “The downtown bridge is close to the school so it’s just a walk. I would stay all day and then go back over the bridge where my parents would meet me on the other side. I would do my homework at night and then it would be the same process the next day.”

There was a heightened sense of urgency for Ocon on days when a major project was due or final exam scheduled. In those cases, she would take the car, stay virtually all day and then return.

“The hard part of all this is I would just come to the house to sleep and get ready to go back again,” she said. “Sometimes I did not have a lot of time to spend with my family.”

Despite the demands and anxiety along the way, Ocon had no doubts about her decision to attend Texas Tech.

“My parents were supportive and have sort of pushed me to do everything I want,” she said. “I have had a lot of encouragement from them and from my teachers at Texas Tech to help me understand everything in class. Since we are a small class, we can spend more time with them, and that made things easier, but it was hard because there is a lot of work.”

Texas Tech also has changed the trajectory of her life in a powerful way. This spring, Ocon learned she had been accepted as a master’s student in the architecture program at the University of Texas-Austin.

“I am super happy about that,” she said. “I was talking to Ersela, and she helped me put together my portfolio. At one point, I thought I would wait a year, but she called me and said, “You can’t wait!’ I applied and was accepted. Now I am happy and nervous and scared.”

Ocon is only the second student from the El Paso program to be accepted at UT-Austin, and no one is prouder than Kripa.

“I told her the journey doesn’t end here, but she was really reluctant to leave her family,” Kripa said. “At first, she decided not to apply, and I convinced her because the world would be so much better if she were an architect in it.

Kripa has played an instrumental role in helping Ocon not just see her potential but believe in it – and do something about it.

“I think of her as a mentor,” Ocon said. “She has helped me especially in thinking and how to connect my ideas. I feel sometimes that my ideas are all over the place, and I don’t know which ones to choose. You want to do something. You add something else. It can be tough.”

The hard part will come in August as she is planning to move with her brother to Austin for the start of classes and the next chapter of her life. No surprise – she has big plans.

“It’s going to be a big change,” she said. “I am interested in sustainable materials and how these materials are made so cost barriers could be removed and they would be more accessible to all types of people. I also want to investigate structures and how they could be designed to give them more purposes than what they are being used for.”

Big things appear to be in store for Ocon as she continues to move ahead. The way has been paved with hard work and perseverance, but it has also included a supportive family and mentors guiding her steps as she put one foot in front of the other.

“Effort is how you achieve your goals,” she said. “That’s the most important thing in all of this. My parents taught me to work hard, to go after what I want and to always put the best of me in what I do. Some days are harder than others, but it’s about what you achieve and especially what you learn.”