Posted on May 28, 2025 by Sean M. Wood
Arelene at the IIDA Conference in Dallas.
Arelene Ubiles admitted she wasn’t much of a “joiner” her first two years at UTSA.
“I went to high school during COVID, so group involvement was not instilled in me,” the junior Interior Design major said. But she chose UTSA because she could live at home, and several friends were also attending.
Then, her friends went overseas to study abroad, and Ubiles said she needed to do something different. “I started by keeping myself busy, which changed my life,” she said.
Ubiles said she started hanging out with other involved people and learned what she could do. “I had to get out of my comfort zone,” she said. “I didn’t want to be bored, so I worked on putting on events. Then people would come up to me later and thank me.”
The events, she said, put her in front of people. She learned how to network and got more comfortable speaking in public. She credits that confidence with landing a summer internship at one of the world’s most prestigious design firms, Gensler.
“This wouldn’t have happened a year ago. All I had were grades, and a grade won’t say anything to a possible employer about what you’re capable of. Now I have so many more skills.”
She developed a number of those skills serving on the Klesse Student Advisory Council (KSAC). First, she was the interior design representative and is now the vice president of student affairs for the downtown campus. She ensures that the downtown students remain connected to UTSA’s 1604 campus.
“Downtown students really do tend to feel that they are not taken into consideration,” KCEID Student Success Center Program Manager Cindy Estrella Estrella said. “She has meetings with student leaders and college deans and does a great job of knowing the organizations and what’s happening at the 1604 campus. She is always making the drive back and forth.”
Ubiles recently showed off her talent by drawing roadrunners representing each engineering discipline for Engineers’ Week ‘25. She did the same for Design Week. These weren’t cartoonish roadrunners, however. They were used on stickers, t-shirts, and tote bags, which were the hot items.
“We wanted to represent every major with those designs to show we’re all in this together,” she said. “That’s my role in KSAC. Everyone deserves representation. It’s exciting to see yourself in something.”
Ubiles does it for “the people around me.” She said that’s what interior design architects do—design for the people who use the space. “It creates such a large impact, but they don’t always see how their designs impact people.”
Ubiles has been designing and redesigning interiors since she and her father redid their house in the woods of Washington state, before moving to Texas for high school. “We tore up that house, inside and out,” she said.
It would be ideal for her to get a full-time job with Gensler upon graduation. Then, she would move downtown and walk to work, continuing her engagement with UTSA and the International Interior Design Association.
“This degree is hard and time-consuming, but it’s only hard because we care,” Ubiles said. “It would be easy if we didn’t care, and if it were easy, everyone would do it. Things can get you down if you don’t put out the energy that you want to get back. It will come back.”
— Sean M. Wood
