After graduating from UC Santa Cruz a year ago, Alexia Lomeli (Merrill ‘23, psychology) is back on campus as part of our beloved staff. As an undergraduate advisor for the department of Film and Digital Media (FDM) she works part time and helps guide students through their college experience. With a BA in psychology working with undergrads connects to her desire to help people.
Lomeli grew up in Baja California, where she and her siblings crossed the border every day to attend school in Chula Vista. The commute could take anywhere from 30 minutes to two hours depending on traffic at the border. When she was 11 years old, Lomeli’s parents officially moved to the United States, living in a suburb of San Diego.
Though her parents did eventually move back to Mexico, her family came to see her at her graduation last year. “It was just very beautiful and emotional, because they worked so hard to get us to the U.S.,” she says.
Lomeli decided she wanted to study psychology when she was in high school. She started talking to her school counselor and learned about all the possible routes a degree in psychology could take her. So, she decided she wanted to be a therapist.
Unlike most undergraduates Lomeli transferred in in 2021 when she was 27 years old. “It’s just so beautiful here,” she says. “I went there once, and I was like, ‘I want to go here.’” And she still hasn’t left, living with her partner and her dog, a German Shorthaired Pointer named Remy (named for the rat in Ratatouille) in Santa Cruz.
Along with working on campus, Lomeli is also going to school full time at SF State to get her Master’s in psychology. “I really want to help farm workers specifically because even in Mexico that’s the community that gets the least attention,” she says. “Here we’re close to Salinas and Watsonville; there are farm workers and their families that need support.” Her current program is an intensive route in marriage and family therapy.
In her free time Lomeli skateboards, binge watches TV, and reads. “Working in FDM is perfect, because I’m always talking about what I’m watching.” Right now she is really into true crime, and she especially loves Only Murders in the Building. As for reading, she loves to explore self-help books because of their connections to what she is studying.
Though Lomeli wants to become a therapist one day she still has a lot of schooling left, so she doesn’t plan on leaving UC Santa Cruz any time soon.