Late, I Know. Hopefully Worth The Wait- Introduction and Orientation

So...I have no grand excuse as to why my posting is JUST starting right now. I'm on PI time? I am, but that's not really the reason. My apologies for the lateness: I hope I can make it up to you through what I share in this blog.

My name's Terisa. You can call me Risa. Nice to meet you, reader :)
So YES...I'm from the Bay Area. Born and raised (shout out to the Yay family who may be reading this), just graduated from college (GO BANANA SLUGS!!!), and now here in So Cal for the Pipeline Program. Can you say blessed? Hyped? Juiced? Excited? Scared? Anxious?

YES. To all of it.
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It's been about a month since the Pipeline had it's 2-day orientation. Held at Cal State Fullerton, the orientation was packed with all of the information our cohort will need to better understand our purpose and objective in this program. Workshops about Pacific Islander His/Herstory, Health Disparities Amongst the PI Community, Access to Health Care, and Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) were incredibly informative and eyeopening. As I continue to read through the notes that I took during each workshop, I find myself learning something new each time that I may have overlooked when I was in the orientation. Just goes to show how much learning can be done beyond the standards set up by traditional educational practices. With the inclusion of a panel featuring local community organizers in the field and another one featuring some of our PI peers, the Pipeline program has taken the need for more PI representation in the health field into its own hands and have created a program that I am more than thankful to be part of. I feel this way all the time when I participate in programs like this one: that feeling of learning what I WANT to learn...doing education in a way that's inclusive of everyone's learning styles and meeting them where they're at in terms of knowledge on what we learn.


It's this kind of education that the University should be giving degrees for.


I'm juiced to see what's in store for our cohort. The workshops. The Research. The Community Exposure. All of it. Bring it on.


Peace,
Risa