Bel Orinda

Bel Orinda

Peer Tutor

Beldina (also known as Bel) is a senior majoring in Anthropology on the Global Health and Environment track and minoring in psychology. At WashU, she enjoys working on the Covid-19 and Reproductive Effects (CARE) project with her faculty mentor and singing in the university choir. She has a passion for the written and spoken word. In her free time, she enjoys spending time with family, planning events, singing, blogging, mentoring, and volunteering.


What brought you to The Writing Center?
After my first experience at The Writing Center for a College Writing paper, I knew that it was a special place. Just having an open space to work through my thoughts and talk through my writing did wonders for me, and I’ve never looked back since. I am excited to be a part of students’ writing journeys and helping them to have ‘a-ha’ moments like the ones I’ve had in my own tutorials.

What do you like most about working with writers at The Writing Center?
What I love most about working at The Writing Center is the community! The openness I love about tutorials doesn’t end once becoming a peer tutor – it extends into the work we do and the interactions we have with other staff, and that’s what I love about it. I also love learning about so many different topics and being able to read about the incredible things other students are studying and working on.

What do you find most challenging about writing?
Editing. Once I have an idea, it’s so hard to a) cut it down to the necessities and b) see my own mistakes. But what’s so wonderful about having a tutor is that you get to be walked through that process and learn how to edit more effectively for yourself.

What advice do you have for writers?
Just start. Never procrastinate. If you have an idea you want to tease out, get a paper and start freewriting way before the due date. Write the roughest draft or word dump your thoughts onto a page. The longer you spend with your ideas, the more they will mean to you and the more developed they will become. And at the end of the whole process, you will feel like the time you spent with your ideas was truly worth it because it’s the intentionality that makes all the difference in the final product.