By DaChawn Kincaid
When I boarded the bus to travel 950 miles from my home of Mississippi to Norfolk, Virginia I felt a flurry of emotions running through me. Among those emotions were anxiety, fear, confusion, and excitement to name a few. Being on this campus for two weeks has all but erased the negative feelings I had before arriving here. During my short time here I have experienced new things and met new interesting people. Along with these experiences I have also learned a tremendous amount of things, particularly involving the idea of resilience.
Upon my arrival, I was given the task of diving into peer reviewed articles and other sources in order to witness how vast the concept of resilience is and to create my own definition of resilience. After compiling a list of articles and other sources I was tasked with creating a presentation that showcased my findings. I presented this presentation to Drs. Padilla and Behr. The presentation basically spoke upon the formal definitions of resilience that I found, my definition of resilience, why resilience is important, and my proposal for resilience moving forward. My first attempt was reviewed by Dr. Padilla. After my presentation he asked me to go into more detail and really differentiate adaptation from resiliency. His review really helped me think deeper and further explore the concept of resilience. Presenting to Dr. Padilla was a mixture of things for me. Being that during my presentation we were the only two people in the room, it was intimidating, exciting, intimate and insightful. He really helped me look at things differently. Specifically, he helped me learn that there are degrees of resilience. These degrees are the biological, psychological, social, and cultural factors that can be increased or decreased in order to improve or worsen resilience in terms of people and material objects. Being that I have learned and experienced this much in two weeks I am excited to see what else is in store for me during the rest of my stay here.
Check out my presentation slides here:
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