Rachel Wetherington stands alongside her poster at SRHC 2014 in Savannah
By Rachel Wetherington:
On March 27-29, I traveled to Savannah, Georgia to attend
and present at the Southern Regional Honors Council conference thanks to
funding from the SAU Foundation, Trey Berry, and the Honors College. The first
event at the conference was a City as Text. I went with a group of two others
and explored the City Market in Savannah. Other groups explored different parts
of Savannah. It was a very interesting and engaging way to learn about this
historic city. It was also an opportunity to talk to other attendees and to learn
about their colleges and honors programs. There was also a riverboat dinner
cruise included with the conference, which included a tour of a historical Fort
Jackson.
Another aspect of the conference was student
presentations. I was able to listen to nine student presentations on a variety
of topics including human trafficking, space exploration, millennials in the
business world, reactive attachment disorder, synesthesia, and others. They
were all very informative and interesting, and each student seemed to be very
knowledgeable about his or her topic.
My presentation was a poster presentation. The title of
my research was “Sources and correlations of stress in undergraduate students.”
It was conducted under the supervision of Dr. Chrisanne Christensen. The original purpose for the research was to examine the impact of the
recession on undergraduate students close to graduation, but a literature
review showed other possible sources for stress in this population. Therefore,
a questionnaire was created using a modified version of the Inventory of
College Students’ Recent Life Experiences along with three original items. Results
showed that having too much to do as well as concerns about the future were top
sources of stress. Additionally, some demographic characteristics, such as
parental educational attainment and ethnicity, were significantly correlated
with higher levels of stress. The research was very interesting to me. Further
research I might conduct might include a comparison of stress levels of honors
and non-honors students using a much larger sample for generalizability. I
received a great response from people who came up to me and my poster; one
professor wanted me to share my research with him so he could use it as an
example for his students.
The SRHC conference was an overall success. It was a
great opportunity to share my research as well as to network with other honors
individuals and to explore Savannah. I saw what I did right and what I needed
to improve on in future poster presentations. I also had the opportunity to
learn presentation skills and information about various topics from other
student presenters. I hope to be able to present at another conference again
soon.
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