Welcome Back!

Hi everyone and welcome back! 

I hope that you all had an enjoyable summer. It certainly flew by. 

As much as I was looking forward to starting my fall courses, I was dreading taking all my courses online and through Zoom meetings. Although, after virtually meeting with my classmates and attending the virtual lecture this week, I realized I enjoyed the experience way more than expected. It was certainly different but the traditional classroom environment was still there. Hopefully, all of you had a similar experience and this semester will be enjoyable for you as well. 

There will be many exciting virtual events coming up this year, but to kick off the semester I wanted to share with you a quick course review from my summer course. 

Course Review

Over the summer I took the PAD 682 Emergency Management with Professor Vonderschmidt. Normally, this course is offered in person but with as you all know all courses were moved to a virtual environment. Professor Vonderschmidt did a wonderful job giving us a similar experience as if we would have been in-person. Through our Zoom class, we had a number of guest speakers. These individuals currently work in the Emergency Management field in the local area, and were able to share with us what their normal day looks like, the challenges COVID-19 has brought and how they have responded to those challenges, highlighted key community partnerships, and much more. Additionally, we utilized disaster readiness gaming software. Through this software we were tasked with preparing a community for an upcoming disaster as if we were the local emergency management team. We would be given a budget, key information about the economy and population, and preparation options. After the disaster occurred, we be ranked on how well the community was prepared as well as the overall destruction and damage. Also, we enrolled in FEMA certification courses and completed a couple certifications that are often required to work in the field. Overall, PAD 682 was an intriguing and informational course. It definitely ranks high in my favorites.