Full Transcript:
Jeff Thompson:
Leaving college, you also leave the Disabilities Services Office. Once you go through your graduation, you’re on your own; you can’t take it with you.
Serena Gilbert:
On the job site, it’s pretty much up to you to advocate what your needs are and why you need them.
Jeff Thompson:
Job Insights, a podcast to help you carve out your career pathway and enhance the opportunities for gainful employment.
Serena Gilbert:
Once you get into the employment setting, 99.9% of the employers have no clue what accommodations you might need to be able to do your job.
Jeff Thompson:
To help you navigate the employment world and give you job insights to choose the career you want. I don’t want to discourage people from using the disability services. It’s not gonna be in the Smithsonian someday, sitting there like that’s what we did years ago.
Serena Gilbert:
The Facebook group is called Assistive Technology Community for the Blind and Visually Impaired.
Jeff Thompson:
And you can find the Job Insights podcast on blindabilities.com, part of the Blind Abilities Network with hosts Serena Gilbert and myself, Jeff Thompson. And you can contact us by email at jobinsights@blindabilities.com. Leave us some feedback or suggest some topics that we cover on Twitter @JobInsightsVIP. And check out the Job Insights support group on Facebook, where you can learn, share, advise, and interact with the Job Insights community. Not only do you get the degree and the credentials that you sought, but you also gain so many skills. The interaction between the students, your teachers, the college organizations, clubs, activities. All of that allows you to hone the skills, the same skills that you can utilize and transition right into the workplace. Learn about resources for training, education, and employment opportunities.
Serena Gilbert:
If you are interested in getting work studies, first of all fill out the free application for student aid as soon as it is available to fill out.
Jeff Thompson:
And now please welcome Serena Gilbert and Jeff Thompson with Job Insights. Welcome to Job Insights.
Jeff Thompson:
I’m Jeff Thompson, and with me is Serena Gilbert. Serena, how you doing?
Serena Gilbert:
I’m doing great, Jeff. How are you?
Jeff Thompson:
I’m doing great. The holidays have passed, the new year’s rolling, and here we are, back in the studio.
Serena Gilbert:
New year already.
Jeff Thompson:
2019. So Serena, some people are in their last semester coming up here. They might be headed into the job market, thinking about employment, thinking about careers. They got to get ready for that stage. One thing that I remember, leaving college, you also leave the Disability Services Office. And once you go through your graduation, you’re on your own; you can’t take it with you.
Serena Gilbert:
Yeah, there’s no disability support services at a job. At best, you might have an ADA coordinator or a trusted HR representative that you ca go to. But on the job site, it’s pretty much up to you to advocate what your needs are and why you need them.
Jeff Thompson:
As for needing them, I remember when I first went to college, I needed my Disability Services Office, because I didn’t know all the tricks and all the ways to do things. But by the time I left college, I weened myself off there, because I knew myself I couldn’t go out there and say, “Hey, can I pick you guys up? “I gotta start work on Monday.” No, they don’t come with you. So I decided by myself to figure out where I need books, where I need information, how to … Well, scanning alone is independence. You know, you have to do things yourself, so I got prepared over the course of two, three, four years.
Serena Gilbert:
Oh, Jeff, you and I went to school in dinosaur days, where we had our little CanoScan, flatbed scanner, one page at a time while you’re listening to, gosh, not even a podcast back then; the radio or a CD. A lot of the students now are like, “Scan books? “What are you talking about?” We didn’t have it as easy as they have it now. Not that it’s super easy, but I think that content is much more accessible now than it was in the dark ages, when especially you, Jeff, went to school.
Jeff Thompson:
Oh, yeah, I mean. Concrete slabs, right? Chiseled? But everything is in the perspective that you’re into it. The stuff that we had to do to get to that point before we had books on tape, 36 different tapes in a box.
Serena Gilbert:
Oh, don’t drop the box.
Jeff Thompson:
Oh yeah. And then you had to figure out where something was. You couldn’t just flick a few pages and then find it and listen for a beep or a tone or something. You probably came into when they had DAISY, where you could actually locate stuff and mark stuff.
Serena Gilbert:
Yeah, I mean, I kinda had a little combination of both. I had literally the books on tape, where it was like a reader that the school had hired to read me my psychology book. But then I also had, back then it was called RFB&D, I think it’s Learning Ally now, and BookShare. But Bookshare had its problems, because sometimes the scans weren’t super awesome, or they didn’t have the textbook that you needed. So I did a lot of what Jeff did: scan a page, flip, scan the next page, flip, hope that you didn’t get it too off center or anything.
Jeff Thompson:
Yeah, because you didn’t really know until you went to read it. At the end of every sentence it’s like
Serena Gilbert:
You’re like, “Oh, I can figure it out.”
Jeff Thompson:
Yeah. And that’s, it was like your own crib notes. You didn’t have all of it, but you had some of it, and that was sometimes good enough; you just had to settle for it. So like you were saying, it may be easier in some aspects of getting stuff electronically, but how do you go about that? When you into a college, you may find yourself using the disabilities office, and you may take it upon yourself to advocate with your teachers and tell them what you need, what you expect from them, what they can expect from you, how you set up that relationship. And the sooner you establish that, that’s no different than when you get to the workplace and you want to develop that relationship with your coworkers and how you get things done. They’ll be curious to know, how the heck do you do that? Once they understand it, you can also drop in how you will be delivering them information. It won’t be in handwriting; it’ll probably be by email or Word document or something like that. But that starts in college, and by the time you’re leaving, you should have that stuff down pretty good and be able to self-advocate for yourself and gain the information and resources that you need that a job will demand.
Serena Gilbert:
That’s a really good point, Jeff, because once you get into the employment setting, 99.9% of the employers have no clue what accommodations you might need to be able to do your job. And if you don’t ask for the appropriate accommodations, it could seriously negatively impact your performance on the job, and then subsequently could end up in job loss because you’re not doing what is needed of you, and it could truly be because you don’t have the software or the equipment that you need to do an effective job. So practicing with your instructors, especially maybe that last year, last semester of college, gets you a chance to work out the kinks and kinda get the nervousness out about advocating for yourself, ’cause sometimes it’s a little different, saying I need this to happen, but it helps way down the road to help you with your professional career.
Jeff Thompson:
Absolutely. And just like I know myself, I wasn’t blind my entire life. I know the difference of how I could do something or get something done compared to now. I have to, before it starts, I have to preempt it. I have to know what’s coming up. I have to prepare, make sure things all come together. I can’t just pick something up along the way anymore. You have to be prepared. You have to be a step ahead of the game.
Serena Gilbert:
I completely know what you mean. So, for example, as part of my job duties, I lead a conference call about once a quarter. We split it up between the team members that I work with. When you’re sighted, sometimes you can just kinda, you know, have your PowerPoint. You don’t need to review it ahead of time. You can just kinda, you know, kinda just wing it a little bit, maybe look at it a couple minutes before. But when you’re visually impaired, there’s a lot more to it. ‘Cause what if your technology kinda fails you a little bit? Or what if something weird happens? You’ve gotta have some backups in place. ‘Cause, you know, when you’re sighted you can just print it and it’s always just gonna be right there in front of you. Or you can have two separate screens, and look at the chat, and look at the PowerPoint, but you have to do things a lot differently when you are using some assistive technology and have some planning and some forethought to it.
Jeff Thompson:
Exactly. And so, when you’re utilizing a students with disabilities office, so many people call it different names, but if you’re using the services that the school provides to you, start looking at some of the things they’re doing, and start realizing that you’ll have to do some of this. Who are they contacting? What are you doing to get information yourself? And most of the time, you adjust to it and you take over, because basically it’s just quicker if you don’t have to have two middle people in between you succeeding. You just kinda pick things up and scan it yourself if it didn’t come out and if you can’t get something in time. Just remember, there’s not gonna be that fallback that you might be using from disability services. And like I said in the beginning, you can’t take them with you when you go. I don’t want to discourage people from using the disability services. It’s not gonna be in the Smithsonian someday, sitting there like that’s what we did years ago. Because, when you first start out in college, it may be different than what you had, whether you’re using a BTVI, a TVI. When you enter college, certain colleges operate a little bit different. You might have to touch base with them to see what’s going on, and then, like I said, ween yourself off of that. So there is a good reason they’re there. You don’t want to become dependent on them, and you don’t want them to coddle you and do things for you. It’s an opportunity for you to see how it works, take a hold of the reins, and master those skills as you go forward, and you can take those with you for a lifetime.
Serena Gilbert:
And along those same lines, when you’re going through post-secondary training and then subsequently employment, the reality is that things will go a little awry at times. A professor might accidentally give you a PDF that’s not accessible. Or there might be a book that, no matter how hard we’ve tried, we cannot find it electronically, and you have to have a backup method. What I’m trying to stress here is that it’s all about how are you going to react to that situation? ‘Cause you can get really upset, and you can complain to the professor, you can do this and do that, but at the end of the day, what’s the quickest way to get you what you need to be able to finish that class up? Yes, it’s nice to bring up that, hey, by the way, here’s a way that PDFs might be more accessible to me in the future, and then, for now, I do have a way that I can scan this and get it read. It’s not a problem. But I just wondered if there was a way that you could maybe format the next one this way so that I would be able to access it a little bit more quickly. But there’s also a nicer way to say that than to say, oh my gosh, this is inaccessible! I can’t read this, I can’t do this assignment! ‘Cause frankly, the instructor’s not gonna react very fondly if you approach it that way. And I hate to say it, but at the college level it’s not their job to accommodate that for you. Sometimes, yes, disability services can help you, but in the real world we live in a sighted world. We’re not gonna be able to change that, so sometimes we have to use some of our technology to help us out.
Jeff Thompson:
And that’s where time comes involved. If you have to rely on someone to change something that they’ve been doing, and you wait for that, and pretty soon, it doesn’t work that way. When you get something come along, you want to access it. If you can’t, if you want to know more about PDFs and stuff, Serina, you have a great Facebook group on, well, it’s on Facebook.
Serena Gilbert:
Yeah, I have a great Facebook group on Twitter.
Jeff Thompson:
That’s amazing! I was wondering when they were gonna be a hybrid social network.
Serena Gilbert:
But the Facebook group, it’s actually quite active. I think I approve probably 10 to 12 new members almost every single day. And on any given day there’s probably about I’d say five to 10 new posts on different assistive technology questions. But the group is called Assistive Technology Community for the Blind and Visually Impaired. So if you just type in Assistive Technology Community, I bet it’ll come right up.
Jeff Thompson:
Mm-hm. That’s a very good group, and the Job Insight’s group on Facebook, we posted the question about disability services, and we had a bunch of people come on there and give what their experiences was or is. And some of them said that their disability service wasn’t very good; that forced them to get better at doing their own research and being their best resource.
Serena Gilbert:
And as a side note, we have been posting some kind of funny content on Job Insight Support Group as well, some text conversations that we’ve had, a very somewhat embarrassing bloopers clip that Jeff so kindly spliced out and edited for me. So if you’re not a member of the Job Insight Support Group, get on Facebook, type in Job Insight Support Group and ask to become a member, ’cause it’s becoming quite the active group.
Jeff Thompson:
Yeah. I like having resources, because you can bang your head up against a wall sometimes, just trying to figure out a PDF. I hear that question all the time: what do they use as an app for PDF? Whether they use Voice Dream Reader or if they’re using a Mac or a PC. There’s people out there that know these questions, and it’s amazing, like, all of a sudden they give you the answer, and you’re like, oh yeah, I forgot about that. It’s a great resource, it’s time, it’s quick, it’s efficient. And that’s what it’s all about: getting stuff done. Like you using your Mac when you’re doing a blog.
Serena Gilbert:
Mm-hm.
Jeff Thompson:
When something doesn’t work right, it just doesn’t work right. But like you use a PC. Do you use Windows and JAWS at work, or do you use MBDA?
Serena Gilbert:
No, I am a JAWS girl all the way. I have been using JAWS since my sophomore year in college. I don’t know any other way.
Jeff Thompson:
But when it comes to college and the workplace, what are you most efficient at?
Serena Gilbert:
Oh, JAWS for sure. And that’s the thing to remember, is that most workplaces, you might find some that like to use Macs, maybe some education fields, maybe if you’re working in, gosh, I don’t know, a social media type place, they might use Macs. But especially if you’re working for like a government or a non-profit or most private companies, they’re gonna be using PCs. And I think the reason is because they’re more cost efficient. They can buy like 200 PC computers at a massive discount and switch out parts pretty easily if a hard drive goes, and Macs you can’t do that.
Jeff Thompson:
Plus most of the government databases are running off a Microsoft platform.
Serena Gilbert:
Yeah, or they’re internet-based, and a lot of the things are designed to work in Chrome or Firefox but not Safari.
Jeff Thompson:
Yeah, with Safari there’s so many times I’m on a government site, and it says right off the bat, please do not use Safari. I’m like, really? Thanks, great. But that’s a reality of the real world out there in the job market and stuff. You’re gonna have to have more than one thing in your toolbox sometimes, whether you’re using MBDA, whether you have narrator skills, or if you’re using JAWS for the PC. With a Mac, if voiceover ain’t working for it, it ain’t working.
Serena Gilbert:
So Jeff is apparently from Texas today.
Jeff Thompson:
No, I’m not, but you were just in Texas.
Serena Gilbert:
I was.
Jeff Thompson:
That’s a country in itself.
Serena Gilbert:
Try driving across it.
Jeff Thompson:
Mm. In a limo.
Serena Gilbert:
I wish. I will take my self-driving car. Or, I’m not sure if you saw one of the articles, this is somewhat related, the self-driving cane. Did you see that?
Jeff Thompson:
No, I did not. Tell me more.
Serena Gilbert:
It’s in the Assistive Technology Community Group. Go check it out. Somebody’s developing a prototype where it’s got wheels on it, and if it encounters an obstacle, it’ll kind of move to the left or move to the right. Sounds pretty cool.
Jeff Thompson:
I wanted to invent something, if you allow me. It was the autonomous elbow.
Serena Gilbert:
What the heck is that?
Jeff Thompson:
Well, you wanted to be guided somewhere, you just hold onto this elbow, and it guides you wherever you want to go. It’s like a drone type of elbow.
Serena Gilbert:
Is this your imaginary friend, Jeff?
Jeff Thompson:
No, it thought it would be really cool to have this little device like a mannequin elbow, and you just walk around with it.
Serena Gilbert:
So like a Juno? ‘Cause you know Juno’s what they use when they want to try to train you on how to use a guide dog.
Jeff Thompson:
Yeah, yeah. I’ll work on it, I’ll work on it.
Serena Gilbert:
You keep working on that prototype, and send it to Apple and see what they say.
Jeff Thompson:
And you’ll find a lot of solutions for assistive technology in the Assistive Technology Community Group administered by Serina. It’s a great group, lots of people, lots of answers, lots of questions if you want to lend support or if you want to learn. So check it out on Facebook. That’s the Assistive Technology Community Group for the Blind and Visually Impaired. So if you’ve already graduated, hopefully you’ve gained all the skills that you need that you’re gonna carry into the workplace when you start applying for jobs. You’re gonna feel confident about your abilities. And if you’re still in college, make sure that you consider all the opportunities you have to gain the skills when you break up into groups in classes. How do you quickly tell three or four people in your group about you might need something read to you? How do you get them onboard with you so you can work as a group and not let the blindness, not let your visual impairment become an obstacle to the group, but you can be a participant and contributor to the group, just like the workplace, the skills that you use to communicate with your instructors and your fellow students. And just like you said, Serina, it’s how you respond to situations. That is the workplace in itself, how you respond to situations in the workplace, the solutions that you come up with, how you overcome obstacles. That’s stuff that you’re learning through college. Those are the same skills that you’ll be utilizing in the workplace, and those are the skills that employers are actually looking for. And to go along with experiences in college, I was in work study, and I tutored mathematics and English, ELL, during my time at school. So I would take some classes, and then in between the classes I would go put in an hour or two hours. And I also worked at the Disability Services Office myself. I worked at the front desk operating the schedule and would accommodate people coming in and telling them information, keeping the counselors schedules in line. But it all paid money while I was at school, so I didn’t need transportation from school to the work, back to school. I did it all right there, and it worked out very well for me.
Serena Gilbert:
Yeah, that’s the beauty of work study. So Jeff, I am curious. You had your work study position. What did you do kind of that last semester of college to help you prepare for work outside of kind of stopping relying so heavily on disability services? Did you do any internships, did you do some networking? What’d you do?
Jeff Thompson:
I did not do an internship, but what I did do was I was involved in the student senate. I became student president of my college campus, and I also represented the state’s 43 two-year colleges and worked with the seven State colleges. I would do this at the state capital and talk with legislators and congress people, and I had to respond quickly. So this really put a test to my ability to use my slate and stylus to make some quick bulleted notes that I would have to present to represent these schools. And I would have to be able to read documents. So, whether I could use a scanner or have someone with me read me a quick note or a pamphlet that was passed out. But developing these relationship with the people I was surrounded by really helped me. So, with them understanding what I need, and me helping them, it was just a great asset to have and to develop the relationship with the people around me as a team. You can’t always do everything all by yourself. It wasn’t a dependency, it was teamwork. We all helped each other, and this was just one of the things that some people helped me with. But for me to retain those notes and be able to give a speech, I had to be prepared and take notes and be able to quickly slate and stylus something out on a note card if I had to present that. So this was very similar to something that would happen in a workplace. It’s teamwork, and we all bring something to the table. We all have a set of skills that helps the team as a whole. And believe me, employers are really looking for team players. So check out your campus activities. Check out the clubs and organizations that are right on your campus. Hey, the travel’s not that hard to do. And don’t forget, check out the work study. That’s a great opportunity as well.
Serena Gilbert:
So if you’re interested in figuring out how the heck do I get such a snazzy work study position? ‘Cause they sound awesome, right? The only way, at least in Colorado, I think it’s a federal way that it works, is if you are interested in getting work studies, first of all fill out the free application for student aid as soon as it is available to fill out. Usually it comes out about October, November of the year before the school semester starts. So as an example, for 2019-2020, you could’ve applied for your federal financial aid in October of 2018. And when I say 2019-2020, that’s your semester starting August of 2019. So as you can see, you kind of have to plan almost a year in advance. But when you’re filling out your free application for student aid, there is a specific section where you have to mark that you want work study. And if you don’t mark that, then you won’t be eligible to apply for work study positions on the campus.
Jeff Thompson:
That’s a great point, Serena, about the FAFSA, the Free Application for Student Aid. It gets the ball rolling on so many areas, from registration to getting your classes, how much money are you gonna have to come up with, how much are they gonna provide, and the work study itself. That’s just part of what college offers. Not only do you get the degree and the credentials that you sought, but you also gain so many skills. The interaction between the students, your teachers, the college organizations, clubs, activities, all of that allows you to hone the skills, the same skills that you can utilize and transition right into the workplace.
Serena Gilbert:
I agree.
Jeff Thompson:
So, not to be alarming. I just want to warn you. It’s coming. Your job market’s coming. You career’s coming. Your applications are gonna be there, and you gotta be independent yourself. It’s just you going out there. When you walk away from your school and go down that sidewalk after graduation, there’s no turning back. This is you, this is it. So, get the skills.
Serena Gilbert:
Are you trying to scare all of our listeners, Jeff?
Jeff Thompson:
No it’s just, it’s a tough market out there, it’s competitive. And the more that you can do independently, the better you’re off. I mean, look at yourself. When you went into the job, you went through all this experience. You’ve probably laid out some ground rules of how things work that you get things done. How’d that go for you?
Serena Gilbert:
Well, and honestly it took me a few years to hone that skill. My very first job during college was a cashier at a discount store. And I did not need many accommodations at that particular store. I do remember my very first day I was on the cash register. I will never forget this moment. I told the person training me, I was like, “You know, my eyes don’t work very well, “so sometimes I need a little bit of help. “like maybe filling out paperwork.” And she’s like, “Oh, don’t worry, honey. “Mine don’t work very well either.” And I know most people would think, well it’s not the same thing. But for me that was so comforting to know that she was, “Yeah, you’ll be okay,” you know? And I was. But as my condition started to progress, I was starting to have a lot more trouble on the cash register at my next job. And finally, I wish I would have said something a lot sooner than I did, but there was one day where I had to just completely stop what I was doing on the cash register because I was making so many mistakes, and tell them, “I’m sorry, I cannot be a cashier anymore.” And luckily they were really understanding, and they found a different assignment for me that I was able to still get similar hours. And then eventually that actually advanced me into working in the human resources part of that particular store. So it was the best thing that could have happened to me, advocating for, hey, this isn’t working anymore. I need help. I was totally scared to do it, but it actually ended up working out well. And now, on my current job, I have absolutely no problem saying when something is needed or when I feel that things are not quite fair the way that they’re presented to me. I’m very professional in the way that I say it, but I do not hesitate to speak up anymore. And that takes a little while to get used to, and a certain comfort level, obviously, with the employer that you’re with, but it’s needed when you have a disability, for sure.
Jeff Thompson:
That’s awesome.
Serena Gilbert:
Well Jeff, it’s been great chatting about what to do in that last semester of college. I know a lot of our listeners are probably getting senioritis. Have you ever heard of that?
Jeff Thompson:
Mm-hm.
Serena Gilbert:
You can’t kinda let the ball drop now. You’ve gotta still prepare yourself for employment. And we’ll talk a little more about that on our next podcast episode, where we start to talk about networking and landing an internship or maybe a summer work experience.
Jeff Thompson:
Well Serena, thank you very much for all your insights, all your job insights. And for those of you who want to find out more about Job Insights, you can check us out on the web at www.blindabilities.com, on Twitter @jobinsightsvip.
Serena Gilbert:
And don’t forget to join our Facebook support group. Search for Job Insights Support Group.
Jeff Thompson:
And remember to check out your vocational rehab, your state agency, your state services for the blind to see what they can do for you. And I want to thank Chee Chau, Chee Chau, Chee Chau for his beautiful music, and that’s @LCheeChau on Twitter. So I want to thank you for listening. We hope you enjoyed. And until next time, buh-bye.
For more podcasts with a blindness perspective, check us out on the web at www.blindabilities.com, on Twitter @BlindAbilities, download our app from the app store: Blind Abilities, that’s two words, or Send us an email..
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