This doctoral student is transforming the first-semester experience for students who struggle with acclimating to college.

Iliana Anaya is scheduled to defend her dissertation in couple, marriage, and family therapy, but her real education in belonging started years earlier.  

She earned her Bachelor of Arts in psychology from Texas Tech University in 2020 and her Master of Science in marriage and family therapy in 2022, learning the clinical frameworks for understanding how people connect. She chose to stay with the College of Health & Human Sciences for her doctorate, where she could study what she’d learned firsthand: how to create space for people who feel like outsiders.  

As a licensed marriage and family therapist associate in Texas, she spent six years at the Lubbock County Juvenile Justice Center, putting theory into practice with young people that society had written off. Now she’s bringing that experience into a new challenge: teaching students how to build the sense of belonging she had to figure out on her own through a new class – CARS 2310. 

When she first arrived on campus as an undergraduate in fall 2017, none of that seemed possible. She felt completely alone. She ended up in a single dorm, and no one from her high school had chosen to come to Lubbock. For an introvert, this was a difficult position to be in. The first couple of semesters became an exercise in persistence, watching other students arrive with built-in connections while she had to work twice as hard to find a way in. 

When homesickness hit, her parents took what seemed like a stern approach: no coming home except for major holidays. At the time, it felt harsh, but looking back, Iliana recognizes it as the push she needed. The choice became clear. She could keep feeling sorry for herself, or she could stop waiting for Texas Tech to feel like home and make it one.  

She chose the latter. 

What she learned during those difficult first semesters would shape everything that came after – belonging doesn’t happen automatically. It requires intentional effort, knowing where to look and having the courage to reach out. Texas Tech had resources and community waiting for her, she just had to learn how to find them and build the connections herself. 

Finding Her Purpose 

Growing up in New Mexico, Iliana saw what many communities face: mental health struggles that nobody seemed equipped to address. Substance abuse, violence and homelessness were visible symptoms of deeper problems people lacked the language or resources to treat. She saw people who needed help but didn’t know how to access it. By high school, she knew what she wanted to do. She wanted to be the person who could help bridge that gap. 

But wanting to help and knowing how to get there are two different things. Despite growing up in a household that valued education, navigating graduate school for mental health counseling was uncharted territory for Iliana. The clarity came during her first graduate advising meeting with Kristy Soloski, when Iliana’s question tumbled out, “Do you think I can even get a doctorate? Do you think I’m qualified?” 

Soloski didn’t hesitate. She told Iliana she would unequivocally support her pursuit. That moment changed everything. It wasn’t about the title or the prestige anymore. It was about becoming the person she needed when she first started this journey, someone who could help others see possibilities they couldn’t see in themselves, who could actively create space for people to belong. 

“I wanted to be someone who people could look up to and think, ‘I can do it. I can be in higher education. I have a space here, and I’m wanted,” Iliana explains. “That was the biggest thing for me. I wanted to pave the path for anybody who may not feel they have the opportunity or the drive to do it. You can. It takes a lot of work, but it’s definitely worth it.” 

Finding Her Path Through Service 

During her graduate program, the opportunity arose to do an externship at the Lubbock County Juvenile Justice Center. People are often scared to work there, uncomfortable with the reality of teenagers in orange jumpsuits who wear shackles and handcuffs, who have mug shots and lengthy sentences ahead of them. But when Professor of Practice Nicole Piland mentioned the opportunity, she offered a challenge that stuck, “If you can give therapy to incarcerated youth, you can give therapy to anybody.” 

Iliana took the opportunity, even though it pushed her outside her comfort zone. What she found surprised her. These kids were some of the smartest, funniest individuals she’d ever encountered. They’d just been dealt an extraordinarily difficult hand. 

She stayed at the juvenile justice center for six years, working throughout her graduate education. The experience taught her how to think quickly, meet people exactly where they were without judgement and intentionally create space for people who felt like outsiders. For Iliana, creating that space meant modeling calm, consistency and respect in settings that often lacked those qualities. She used techniques like systemic reframing, helping youth see their reactions not as “bad behavior” but as learned survival responses within their family and environmental contexts. She prioritized collaborative language (“we,” “let’s figure this out”) and nontraditional engagement tools like creative journaling or brief mindfulness exercises that fit the facility’s structure while fostering trust and autonomy. 

One of the most meaningful moments in her time there came through a goodbye letter from a resident, who wrote, “What you have done for me means a lot. You are the best counselor I’ve ever had. I always feel safe and comfortable around you… you really are like a big sister to me.” 

That message captures what Iliana strives to bring into every setting she works in – authenticity, warmth and the active work of making people feel like they belong. It’s what she learned to do for herself at Texas Tech and what she’s spent her career doing for others. 

Teaching Philosophy: Making Space to Learn 

Now, as an instructor with the College of Health & Human Sciences, Iliana’s approach centers on what she calls “freedom to fail.” Whether working with incarcerated youth or teaching undergraduates, she wants students to feel secure enough to take risks without the crushing fear that a single misstep will tank their future. She remembers what it felt like as a first-year student, terrified of doing something wrong, of reaching out and being rejected. 

“Too many students operate in constant fight-or-flight, so terrified of failure that they never stretch themselves or grow,” she observes. “That fear doesn’t just make learning harder. It halts growth.” 

Her focus is on practical life skills. She wants students to learn how to navigate stress and difficult emotions, set boundaries and have hard conversations while moving through challenges with intention instead of desperately flailing to stay afloat. These are the tools that will matter five, ten, twenty years down the line, the same tools she wishes she’d developed more consciously during her own undergraduate years. 

Iliana also recognizes that teaching is a two-way street. Her students teach her constantly, offering perspectives she’s never considered. That mutual exchange keeps her engaged, and it’s why she aspires to become the kind of professor students recommend to future generations – the kind of mentor Soloski was for her. 

But no one can give what they don’t have. Teaching requires taking care of oneself first, which is why Iliana is intentional about self-care. She walks her miniature dachshund Jimmy Dean regularly, tends to her ever-growing plant collection (she jokes that while other grad students hoard cats, she hoards plants) and makes time for Texas Tech football and basketball games even when her schedule feels impossibly packed. 

Her message to students mirrors her practice – self-care doesn’t have to be expensive or time-consuming. Sometimes the most restorative act a person can do is simple. It could be taking a 10-minute nap, sitting outside in the sunshine, walking barefoot through grass or wandering around campus noticing what’s beautiful. The important thing is doing something that fills a person’s reserves. 

The TechThrive Class: Bridging the Gap 

Now Iliana is helping develop Texas Tech’s new TechThrive CARS 2310 course, and everything she’s learned – from her own struggle to find her footing as a first-year student, to her clinical work with marginalized youth, to her years of teaching – is being woven into its design. The course is designed to give students what she eventually found at Texas Tech, but more quickly and systematically, a clear roadmap to the abundant resources available on campus, and practical tools for using them effectively. 

Working alongside Jaclyn Cravens Pickens, an associate professor and coordinator for the TechThrive initiative, Iliana is building a class that breaks away from traditional lecture-heavy formats in favor of something more experiential. The course is hands-on and exploratory. There are no papers, just reflections about students’ own lives and active participation in activities that get them exploring campus. 

“If you show up and give 100%, there’s no reason you shouldn’t do well in the class,” Iliana explains. 

Students will visit University Recreation to see what programs and activities are offered, attend sporting events already included in their tuition and meet guest speakers from across campus who explain what services they provide and how to access them. The course tackles something that troubles many college students: how to balance social life, academics and personal time. Students learn when to say yes to opportunities and when to protect their energy, how to have difficult conversations and set boundaries. 

These aren’t textbook skills, but they make all the difference between students who thrive in college and those who just survive. They’re the skills Iliana had to learn through trial and error, now systematically taught so students don’t have to figure it out alone. 

What Iliana wants most is for students to understand that the light at the end of the tunnel isn’t as far away as it feels during difficult first semesters. Four years can feel overwhelming, but it becomes manageable with the right tools and support, and Texas Tech has both in abundance if a student knows where to look. 

“I want them to be able to apply this to real life,” she says. “I want them to look back 10 years later and say, ‘I learned that in Iliana’s class, and I’m still using it.”

The lessons taught in CARS 2310 aren’t about becoming a perfect student or maintaining a flawless GPA. They’re about becoming a functional, resilient human who knows how to navigate challenges without completely falling apart and how to actively build the sense of belonging that makes everything else possible. 

Full Circle 

Iliana’s journey at Texas Tech has taken her from struggling to find her place as an undergraduate to actively helping shape how future students find theirs. But the arc of that journey reveals something deeper, her early isolation wasn’t a detour from her calling. It was preparation for it. Learning to build belonging for herself taught her how to create space for others who feel like outsiders. 

The isolated first-year student who had to work twice as hard for every social connection developed skills she now brings to every setting: the ability to reach out even when it’s uncomfortable, to create community intentionally rather than waiting for it to happen and to help others see possibilities they can’t yet see in themselves. Those lessons now form the foundation of a course designed to make the process less lonely and increasingly guided for the next generation. 

Students who complete the course will earn the “Mindful Matador” designation and receive a special graduation cord, tangible reminders of the work they’ve put into their growth and wellbeing. But more important than any designation is the shift Iliana hopes to see – young people who know that Texas Tech has resources waiting for them and who know how to access those resources; students who can navigate challenges without spiraling, who understand that taking care of themselves isn’t selfish but necessary, and who know that belonging is something they can actively build. 

“You can’t pour from an empty cup,” she says. 

It’s become a personal mantra, a lesson that grounds everything she teaches and everything she’s learned through years of clinical work and her own journey toward belonging at Texas Tech. 

About CARS 2310 

CARS 2310 is open to all Texas Tech students looking to build practical life skills, discover the wealth of resources their tuition pays for and create meaningful community connections.