Watch the Video: Karsten Cowan Rise Above Adversity

Karsten Cowan shares her journey of resilience and tenacity after suffering a concussion while on the UW-Green Bay Swim and Dive team in college. The traumatic brain injury led her to undergo months of therapy but through grit and determination, Karsten persevered and continued her Psychology classes through it all.

Transcript: I was a diver on campus, so I was a part of a Swim and Dive team my freshman year and after getting a concussion it took me out and it sent me into six months of speech therapy, vestibular therapy, occupational therapy, seeing a neurologist like three or four times a week. And I was living at home at the time because I couldn’t drive I couldn’t I had to depend on my family again. And so, I was honestly the saddest part about going back home was not having my family here. Like I had created a family here. And I had to go back and I still did school. I was still a full-time student online. I couldn’t look at light. I couldn’t look at a screen for more than 30 minutes at a time, so I had to learn how to space myself. I had to learn how to do 30 minutes of work at a time and then go take rest. I had to put my head under a pillow to like reset my eyes and it was tough. When you have those hardships, resilience is what gets you through and so just learning that it’s okay, it’s okay to go through things but it’s how you handle them and how you deal with them that really sets you up for your future.