ROY: Graduate Micaela Pacheco takes her final bow at UNM (pg

from Daily Lobo 12/12/2022

SECOR: ROTC cadets prepare to graduate (pg

public university. That being said, she still found ways to get involved on campus.

“I really stuck to my academics during my first couple of semesters; my campus involvement was always going to CAPS tutoring and Supplemental Instruction sessions, just making sure that I ended up with a good GPA after every semester. Especially ‘cause I knew I wanted to go to med school. By getting a good GPA, I was enlisted into the Pi Eta Sigma Freshman Honor Society. And that’s kind of what started my campus involvement,” Suazo said.

After her selection to Pi Eta Sigma and appointance as a LANL ambassador, Suazo would also be tapped for the Mortar Board Honor Society. She recounted the moment and how it led to her meeting current Associated Students at UNM vice president, fellow LANL scholar and Mortar Board member, classmate and friend Krystah Pacheco.

“We were in the same position. We really didn’t know anybody, and she was super friendly. I think that was one of the first things I really liked about Tayler. And she’s also very approachable. That was probably one of the first things that I (could) really recognize when we first met,” Pacheco said.

Throughout the course of Suazo’s senior year, her and Pacheco’s friendship would develop through their collaboration in Mortar Board as well as through their shared class.

“It’s more like the interactions that came through Mortar Board, where we continued to see each other. And then we also had a class together this semester, and she sat right in front of me,” Pacheco said. “So, seeing her twice a week, we always had conversations about the class, her goals for medical school and the status on her applying. So, it was through those small interactions where we continued to learn more about each other.”

Pacheco’s favorite memory of their friendship was when Suazo told her that she had been accepted into medical school. The excitement of the moment was certainly a factor, but for Pacheco, it was more memorable because of how that moment reflected who Suazo is: humble, hard-working and ambitious.

Suazo will first be completing a six-month internship with Los Alamos National Laboratories before officially starting medical school next July. Upon completion of medical school and her subsequent residency requirements, Suazo plans to return to Abiquiu to become a primary care doctor.

“We definitely need doctors up here, and we don’t really need a lot of specialities. We need primary care doctors who are gonna see people on a regular basis for their chronic health concerns,” Suazo said.

Future goals aside, Suazo still acknowledged the “amazing feeling” of getting this far, emphasizing the work it took to get her here and what she’ll miss on her way out.

“It’s bittersweet; I will miss all my campus involvement. But it’s amazing. I look back and, coming from such a small town, getting a bachelor’s degree is almost unattainable to some students. And the fact that I am finishing it, not only early, but Summa Cum Laude with good standing, it just makes me proud of what my community has produced in a sense,” Suazo said. “It takes a village to raise a child, and my family has done an incredible job of always supporting education. Just to see the light at the end of the tunnel and to know that I got accepted to med school — it’s an amazing feeling.”

John Scott is the editor-in-chief at the Daily Lobo. He can be contacted at editorinchief@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @JohnSnott

Graduate Micaela Pacheco takes her final bow at UNM

By Zara Roy

@DailyLobo

Upcoming University of New Mexico graduate Micaela Pacheco will be closing this chapter of her life with a bachelor’s degree in theater, a career in spiritual healing and a love of sharing her creativity with those around her.

Having done theater ever since she was young, Pacheco initially wanted to go into film. Now, she cannot see herself pursuing a traditional theatrical route at all. If she does get back into theater, she wants to use it as a medium to share her own creations in the form of devised work and performance art.

“I’ve loved to perform my whole life: I’ve loved to sing and act, and since I was really small I’ve been pulled to performance. And I did theater all throughout high school, and it just seemed like that was the logical thing to do in college … I was very interested in doing film and theater, but then somewhere along the way, I started to tap into my other passion of healing myself and then using that experience to help others,” Pacheco said.

Though she has found that her passions don’t lie in academia, she said that her experiences at UNM have been valuable in helping her move on to the next stage of her life, nonetheless. Pacheco’s primary goal will be working on her business, Marigold Moon Healing, which sells artwork and crafts made by her and her business partner, Abigail Hutton, in addition to intuitive healing services and group meditation sessions.

“I’m thankful that I’ve gotten the opportunity to go to school because I know a lot of people don’t get that opportunity, and I’m so grateful for that. But I’m also really grateful to just be done, to put it behind me, to move on and do the things I’m passionate about and excited about,” Pacheco said.

She said that she first got seriously into intuitive healing after meeting with curanderas, or Mexican and Latin American folk healers, at a fair held by UNM. Later, she found out she had great-great-grandmothers on both sides who had been curanderas, and she ended up training in curanderismo after that experience. She moved onto learning about reiki healing and