Resilience in first-semester students at a university

Abstract

University institutions are concerned about the high dropout rates presented by students, mostly generated by the changes in the environment that university entrance brings about, such as the exposure to challenging situations. It has been demonstrated that resilience is an ability that allows young people to successfully assume biological risk experiences, and even go beyond and thrive when facing stressful events. Given the above, university institutions have developed a great interest in determining the level of resilience of their students, especially in the first semesters, since this would allow them to lay the foundations for developing mechanisms to increase retention levels. The objective of this research was to analyze the resilience of first-semester university students with a quantitative approach, and analytical and descriptive method. The results obtained determine that entering university students have a moderate level of resilience. The lowest levels of resilience are detected in the following dimensions: equanimity, feeling good alone, and personal satisfaction, which denotes important opportunities for institutions that seek to develop mechanisms to increase resilience in students throughout their professionaldevelopment.