JTC 26: The Best Decision They Almost Did Not Make

It started with a Google search and a case of mistaken geography. 

“For high school, we had to do an international experience, and it just happened to be COVID that year,” said Andres Cepeda, a mechanical engineering major from Puebla, Mexico, set to graduate from the University of Mississippi in May. “We were supposed to travel abroad but had to do online, so I just went with whichever engineering program I could find.  

“I saw Oxford and thought, ‘That’s like England. That’s fancy’.” 

When he realized Oxford was in Mississippi rather than England, he did not hesitate. He applied anyway, and that decision changed everything. 

He attended the university’s Pre-College Program and proceeded to persuade friends Maria Argote and Paulina Eguibar, from his hometown in Mexico, to join him at Ole Miss. Today, all three have made the most of their times as engineering majors in Oxford and will graduate as Taylor Medalists. 

Andres Cepeda 

Cepeda enrolled in the Pre-College Program, taking courses in introductory engineering and Southern studies. There, he learned more about Southern culture, as well as opportunities available to engineering students, and the Mississippi Premier Scholarship, which covers 93% of tuition costs for international students with a 3.9 GPA or higher. 

“I think they did it amazingly because I had the perspective of what it was like in the South and not just whatever idea I had previously, and then I had an insight into what the engineering program actually looked like,” Cepeda said.  

“They told me about the scholarship, and I was like, ‘OK, this is becoming more and more real. There is no way I am moving by myself.’” 

So, he told his classmates who could also qualify for the Mississippi Premier Scholarship, Argote and Eguibar. 

Cepeda enrolled in the mechanical engineering program and the Haley Barbour Center for Manufacturing Excellence. He has excelled in the classroom, serving as a teaching assistant for thermodynamics courses and earning the Outstanding Senior Leadership award from the School of Engineering in addition to the Taylor Medal. 

The cultural adjustment outside the classroom came with its surprises. 

“There was definitely a culture shock,” Cepeda said. “I didn't know what a sorority was until here. One day out of my dorm, I just saw a sea of girls running across. I thought, ‘Is there fire?’  

“Part of it was opening myself to a different culture. I love Southern food. I've been on a little kick of cooking and eating Cajun food, so I've been making jambalaya, gumbo, red beans and rice; I’m fully embracing it now.” 

Cepeda has to eat well to keep up with another one of his hobbies, distance running. He committed to running the St. Jude Marathon, a decision that started casually and grew into something larger.  

After his first race, where he met families and cancer survivors and saw the impact of St. Jude firsthand, he returned the following year with a full fundraising effort and started a running team that grew to 15 people. 

He showed the same initiative as he pursued his career path. He attended a career fair on campus as a freshman, where he connected with Hol-Mac, a steel fabrication company in Bay Springs. They were not looking for freshmen at the time but returned the following year and asked for Cepeda by name.  

That experience led to an internship at Cirrus Aircraft in Duluth, Minnesota, where he will return after graduation to begin his career in aerospace. 

“Week after week, I wondered when I was going to dread going to work,” Cepeda said. “This is not normal; I am excited about the work. I get to work on airplanes, which is a dream come true.” 

Maria Argote 

When Cepeda returned from his Pre-College experience and told Argote about the Mississippi Premier Scholarship, she was intrigued but still figuring out her direction.  

“I really loved biology, so I was still thinking the med school route,” Argote said. “I knew that if I decided to do something more STEM-focused, that I wanted to be more on the research side.  

"Having the ability to have those smaller class sizes, plus an honors thesis was something that really interested me.” 

A conversation with an Ole Miss alumnus from their high school system changed her path. Through that connection, Argote learned about the university’s biomedical engineering program. 

“I did not know what BME was,” she said. “I didn't even know that was a thing. He talked about what the program did, and then he talked about his Ph.D. research.” 

Argote applied and was accepted into the BME program, as well as the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College.  

At her student orientation, she picked up a pamphlet for the Society of Women Engineers, which became one of the most defining parts of her Ole Miss experience. She worked her way from member to secretary to vice president to president, growing the chapter’s conference attendance from five members to more than 30. 

As president, Argote faced the challenge of fundraising for the group's national conference. SWE took to the Grove, selling buttons at tailgates, partnering with local businesses and reaching out to employers. They met their goal. 

“We were from a small engineering department in Mississippi, and we were probably the largest chapter at the conference entirely self-funded,” Argote said. “We are out here making sure that our students have the access to every opportunity that they can.” 

Outside of SWE, Argote joined biology professor Joshua Bloomekatz’s cell biology laboratory as a freshman, conducting research on gene editing and heart development using clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats, or CRISPR, technology.  

She was awarded the Stamps Impact Prize in 2025 to support her research, and the following summer earned an opportunity at the Mayo Clinic doing translational research. 

After graduation, she will join the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts, as a research associate. 

“I'm actually going to be working on improving CRISPR systems for other labs,” Argote said. “We want to know, ‘How do we make this tool better? And how do we use it in a million different contexts to inform us about stuff from chemotherapy resistance, tumor morphogenesis or like development choices?’ I am really excited.” 

Paulina Eguibar 

Like many students, Eguibar spent the pandemic behind a screen, which led her to discover programming and computer science. When Cepeda told her about Ole Miss, she took the chance and enrolled as a computer science major. 

Coming to Oxford was an adjustment, but she quickly found community among other international students and Spanish speakers on campus. 

“We have a bunch of friends who know how to speak Spanish, and they love the Spanish language and the Mexican culture,” Eguibar said. I am really close friends with some other international students that are also from Spanish speaking countries, like Venezuela and Colombia.” 

They also found support from the community. Eguibar had previously been to other parts of the United States, including San Antonio, Texas, for a tennis academy, but she has quickly fallen in love with the South. 

“The people are super welcoming,” she said. “Everyone I've met, they're like, ‘Oh my gosh, you're from Mexico. That's so cool!’” 

Like Argote, Eguibar found her footing through SWE, attending her first conference on an extra ticket as a sophomore and returning the following year as conference coordinator. Her senior year, she helped lead the self-funded trip to New Orleans.  

“I remember, getting to NOLA and arriving to the conference center and seeing everyone that was there locked in, ready to network and everything,” she said. “In the end, we did it, which was very, very rewarding.” 

Eguibar also won first place in the data science challenge at the Ole Miss Hackathon as the only computer science major on a team of mechanical engineers, approaching the problem in a way no other team did. 

After graduation, Eguibar will return to Mexico to work for MasterCard. 

For three students who found Ole Miss almost by accident, the journey has exceeded every expectation. 

“I have had the great privilege of knowing Andres, Maria and Paulina over the last several years,” said Joanna Harrelson, associate professor of practice in the engineering school. “They have each contributed to enriching the School of Engineering through leadership involvement, academic excellence and always maintaining a positive attitude and willingness to grow.  

“Ole Miss is a better place because of these three remarkable students." 

Eguibar could not agree more. 

“Coming here was the best thing I could have done,” she said. “I really want to go back home and apply everything that I've learned here and be able to like transfer it to somewhere back home.  

"Mexico is a great country as well, and now I want to evolve the level I’ve acquired here and transfer it forward.”  

Top: Maria Argote (left), Paulina Eguibar and Andres Cepeda, three engineering graduates from Puebla, Mexico, graduate in May as Taylor Medalists after arriving at Ole Miss through the Mississippi Premier Scholarship. Submitted photo