'I can use my voice to raise awareness': COD graduate who commuted from Mexicali paves way

Every week, Mexicali resident Grecia Paola Siono Gutierrez, her brother and her mother make the drive across the U.S.-Mexico border to study at College of the Desert.

Since she was a kid, Siono dreamed of studying at a U.S. university, but finances prevented her from enrolling at a four-year school straight out of high school.

Enter COD.

Siono learned about the school through family living in the Coachella Valley, and she started her studies online during the pandemic. Then, two years ago, an aunt living in Indio began renting an extra room to Siono so she could attend in-person classes at the community college. The odyssey became a family affair.

Siono’s mother, Teresa, and her younger brother, Jose Enrique, joined her, as well —  her mom taking English classes and her brother following in her footsteps as an electrical engineer.

From Monday through Thursday, the three of them share one bedroom in Indio and one car to get around the valley.

“We only use that room basically to sleep, wake up and shower, and then we come to COD and all of our days are spent here at the college,” Siono said during a Zoom interview she accepted late on a Tuesday evening from where else but the COD Library.

Many days, Siono will spend a dozen or more hours on COD's campus, taking classes, tutoring students in math and physics or leading a robotics club that she created. Her brother is involved in many of the same activities and also performed at the McCallum Theatre earlier this month.

Then, they drive back to Mexico for the weekend.

This arduous pattern that has continued for two years has now paid off for Siono.

She will be attending UC San Diego this fall on a scholarship that will cover her tuition and the cost of living near campus.

From a star on campus to a career in the stars

While at COD, Siono shined. She practically became the face of the college — in brochures for the COD Foundation, at fundraisers and across local media outlets.

At first, Siono said she was too shy to step into the limelight. Then, she realized she could make a difference.

“I can use my voice to raise awareness of what it’s like to be a minority studying STEM,” she said.

Siono and her brother both participated in a NASA-funded project at COD where seven students designed, built and launched a small satellite over the Salton Sea to measure the sea’s carbon dioxide emissions.

It was a step toward a dream come true for Siono.

“One of my biggest dreams is to work at NASA,” she said. “I really want to design circuits for robots that do space exploration.”

But because of her U.S. immigration status, her options to work for the government agency are limited, she says.

“It’s really hard for me to have access to (NASA) internships, so my biggest advice is that if you don’t see any opportunities available to you — create them.”

And, so she did at COD — starting the college’s first robotics club.

“I wanted to gain the most experience possible, so I could be prepared if the opportunity was given to me to do a (NASA) internship,” she said.

Upon her graduation Wednesday, her brother will assume leadership of the club. Kind sister she is, Siono made it a point to say that although her brother is not graduating this year, she would like him to receive acknowledgment in this article for winning the Best Space Mission Award in the NASA Community College Aerospace Scholars Program.

Siono also wished to thank professors Robert Kelbley, Carl Farmer and Jorge Perez.

Representation matters

Before Siono worked with a NASA program and before she got a scholarship to study electrical engineering at UCSD, she thought she was going to become a finance major.

As a freshman in calculus, Siono struggled mightily.

Her English was not yet great, and she had trouble understanding some of the complex mathematical concepts taught to her in her second language. On top of that, classes at the time were taught remotely over Zoom due to the pandemic, making it even more difficult to engage with the content.

“Long story short, I failed my first calculus exam,” Siono said. “I was like if I can’t do integrals, then I can’t be an engineer. So, I emailed my professor and I told him, ‘There’s nothing wrong with you, but I’m going to drop your class because I’m doing really bad and I don’t think I’m gonna be able to make it.'”

Siono was ready to give up on her lifelong dream of working for NASA.

Professor Jorge Perez kept that dream alive.

“That same day, he called me and encouraged me to stay in engineering,” Siono said. “He even told me, ‘Hey, when you work at NASA, please call me and give me a tour of the cool rocket you built.’”

Siono said she was surprised.

“This professor didn’t know me that well, and he still gave me that encouragement that I needed to hear,” she said. “Because of him, I stayed in engineering and I tried hard. At the end, I got an A in the course because that conversation somehow motivated me and made me realize I’m capable of achieving this.”

Like Siono, Perez is Mexican. She said the professor made her feel seen and heard because she could connect with him on many levels.

“Representation truly matters,” Siono said. “When you don’t see people that look like you in places you want to be, it’s hard for you to imagine yourself in those places.”

Now, Siono is well on her way to reaching her dream destinations at UCSD and beyond. Like Perez to her, she became the face at COD that inspired other students — whether her brother, her club mates or the students she tutored — to achieve their goals, too.

Jonathan Horwitz covers education for The Desert Sun. Reach him at jonathan.horwitz@desertsun.com.

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: NASA hopeful commuted weekly from Mexico to Palm Desert COD campus