Graduate Student Success Series: Carmen Mestizo

The Graduate Center is happy to congratulate Carmen Mestizo on finishing her dissertation! Dr. Mestizo graduated with a Science Juris Doctor (SJD) this spring from the Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy Program at the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law (University of Arizona Law) . In her own words, she benefited greatly from the Graduate Center’s writing support team: “The Graduate Center—especially its online Writing Efficiency Sessions (WES)—was critical to my finishing my dissertation. Since the beginning of the pandemic, I started to participate in their meetings several times a week. It helped me break my isolation while I worked remotely during the first year of the pandemic from my home country, Colombia, and the second year from my home in Tucson. The two-hour WES sessions inspired me and my friend Liliana Toledo from Mexico to work together using the Pomodoro technique that we learned at the WES. This was at the least a few more hours beyond the WES sessions, but many times almost the entire day. I also made very successful writing sessions with other colleagues that attend the WES, such as Cristina Urias from Mexico and Kamaile Maldonado from Hawaii. The WES sessions helped me develop a sense of community with the host and all the students who attended. I could say that thanks to WES, I felt less isolated than even before the pandemic.”