Resilience has to do with our ability to overcome setbacks and obstacles. Take a moment to consider some of the roadblocks that you have faced so far in your college career. Is math just an impossible subject? Or did you struggle to find the perfect internship or major? Were finding the finances to cover college expenses an impossible uphill climb? Or was finding a close social network the issue? We all face struggle and adversity, but what we do about it and how we think about it can make the difference between moving forward and getting stuck!

Reflect on a challenging event in your recent past and consider what happened as a result of that challenge. What were the thoughts and feelings that accompanied the event? Were you able to navigate past the roadblock, or did it stop you in your tracks? What makes it possible for some people to overcome the obstacles they face (and even perhaps learn to thrive) while others cannot?

Through this project, we want to develop a deeper understanding of this important quality called resilience and share strategies that we all can use to help us overcome our challenges and actually thrive in the face of them.

Here are a few more references that you can read to give you some background knowledge about resilience:

• PBS’s Nova What Makes a Resilient Mind? (2015)
• This Emotional Life  on Resilience
• The Resilience Factor (2002) Karen Reivich & Andrew Shatte; Three Rivers Press; New York.