I am glad that I took the (Un)natural Disasters course alongside both my nuclear power independent study and my ENVS 330 core course, Situating Environmental Problems and Solutions. This trio of classes was an excellent combination for the spring of my junior year, as I begin to prep for thesis. The goal of my independent study was to build the background and framework of my thesis around the concept of resiliency and nuclear power. Both aspects of my interest are incredibly broad and have required an extensive review of literature. ENVS 330 similarly is designed to be taken in the spring of junior year because one component of the class is to help students create strong frameworks within existing ENVS concentrations from which to create a project for thesis.
The (Un)natural Disasters class has been an excellent bridge between the two previously mentioned classes because it has provided a number of contexts through which to apply different components of resilience, including vulnerability, ecological and social systems, hazard, and more. It has taken me a long time to narrow down which aspect of nuclear power to study, but in the long run I have come to realize that the three big nuclear disasters are the most interesting, and the most applicable to resiliency. The class was also a large influence on how my interest in nuclear disaster developed. My current thesis outline is primarily focused on the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi meltdown. This disaster is of particular interest to me because of the influence that the Tohoku earthquake and subsequent tsunami had in the nuclear power plant’s failure. The class has been invaluable in providing not only framework through which to study disaster, but also contextual application of the frameworks studied.