For Nayla Bejarano, the weekend that has just passed will undoubtedly be unforgettable.
The native of Chihuahua City came to this city eight years ago to study at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) and has completed her studies for a Master’s in Public Health, with plans to advance and become a Doctor of Medicine.
“I arrived because I came looking for a dream in the United States, without knowing what I was facing. But it has been a nice path, ”she says in an interview prior to the graduation ceremony.
She adds that when she moved to live alone in El Paso, she felt like she was moving to the other side of the world.
“I have been at UTEP for 8 years, because I studied my bachelor’s and master’s degrees. It is the place where I have grown the most professionally and personally because I have developed to be the woman I am today”, says Nayla.
As a curious fact, although he graduated with a degree in Neuroscience, Bejarano barely enjoyed his first university graduation because he finished his undergraduate studies during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The graduate of the Faculty of Health Sciences also has an artistic sensibility: she wrote a poem dedicated to UTEP.
“I studied a Master’s in Public Health to promote information to the Hispanic population,” he says. She adds that her passion for mental health began when she was “very young.”
His postgraduate thesis deals with exhaustion –burnout– and its effects.
“I realized that people need a lot of love, they need to be heard. I continue talking and learning. I come to a university where there are a lot of opportunities to speak up and then I learned how to use my voice to speak up for people who can’t use theirs,” says Nayla.
And he is blunt in pointing out: “Mental health is my priority in all people.”
As the first person in his family to graduate in the United States, he believes it represents something very beautiful and beyond the personal.
Now, her dream is to study medicine elsewhere and return to raise her family in this border region. She also longs to return to UTEP to give back for the education she received.
“The border is the most beautiful place I know. Let us not forget that this is a very powerful place and that we can make a change not only here but also at the country level”, she concludes.
the largest graduation
This past Saturday and Sunday, UTEP hosted four in-person commencement ceremonies at the Don Haskins Center, celebrating the largest graduating class in UTEP history: more than 3,140 spring and summer graduates, which exceeds the record established by the university last spring.
In the Faculty of Sciences there were 46 candidates for a master’s degree: the highest number for a single semester, while 121 candidates for a bachelor’s degree were registered, equivalent to 44 percent of the generation, with an academic average of 3.5 or higher, with 4.0 being the highest. maximum rating.
In the Faculty of Engineering there were 105 undergraduate students graduating with honors (average equal to or greater than 3.5). This implies that 39 percent of engineering undergraduate students achieved this distinction: a record for the faculty.
The Computer Science degree program had the highest number of graduates in its history, with 96 students graduating in the spring. The MS in Systems Engineering and the Ph.D. in Computer Science also achieved a record number of graduates for the current spring semester: 24 graduates with the M.S. in Systems Engineering and 5 with the Ph.D. in Informatics (Computer Science).
UTEP is the leading university for Hispanics in the United States. Located in the far west of Texas, where three states and two countries meet along the Rio Grande River, 84 percent of the 24,000 students are Hispanic and half are the first in their families to go to college. UTEP offers 169 bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral programs and is the only premier open-access research university in the United States.
