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Shane DeSantis, Transition Coordinator at State Services for the Blind, hosts the College101 Webinar with 3 unique college students giving their unique perspective on how they are succeeding and succeeded in their college journey.
learn from their experiences and suggestions as they respond to questions submitted from high school students, college students and teachers.
Are you interested in attending college to gain education and
training needed to meet your employment goals? Do you have questions about what the transition to college will look like and what skills are needed to be successful in higher academics? In this College101 Webinar you may find the answers you are looking for.
If you have any questions, please contact Shane DeSantis at shane.desantis@state.mn.us or 651-358-5205.
Contact Your State Services
If you reside in Minnesota, and you would like to know more about Transition Services from State Services contact Pre-ETS Program and Transition Services Coordinator Shane DeSantis by email or 651-358-5205.
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Full Transcript
College101: 3 Unique Perspectives, 3 Unique Journeys, Sharing their Unique Experiences from Their College Success
Jeff:
Welcome to the State Services for the Blind of Minnesota College 101 Webinar.
Brian:
If anybody’s going into software development and have trouble reading text visually, I highly, highly recommend you learning or really refreshing your braille skills and learning UEB and/or computer braille if you’re going into software development because text-to-speech is just gonna miss so much stuff.
Jeff:
A panel giving three unique perspectives.
Joshua:
From there, I just started like walking around, like intentionally getting and finding where like point A connects to point C and how point C connects to point B and like how point like A, B, and C all connect. Personally, I just like walking around and kind of like exploring.
Jeff:
Three unique journeys.
Steph:
In college, the big difference here is that you really do need to reach out to disability services. Self-advocacy can be really hard. I’ll be the first to say that.
Jeff:
Three unique students sharing what has worked for them throughout their college journey.
Brian:
And just even joining one or two, like I became a student employee and I thought, okay, this is great. I’m just gonna make money. I was not expecting shaking hands with a senator from Minnesotan Congress.
Jeff:
Now please welcome from State Services for the Blind of Minnesota, transition coordinator Shane DeSantis. We hope you enjoy.
Steph:
So much trial and error, I think knowing how and when to ask for help.
Shane:
Thank you everyone for joining us tonight. My name’s Shane DeSantis. I’m the transition coordinator with State Services for the Blind, and I’m glad to bring you guys all together and talk about college. This idea came to mind through a national meeting that I saw where individuals were talking about their college experience and sharing some tips and tricks about what it’s like being a college student, so our inspiring college folks can hear from their peers what it’s like to be at college. And so you guys, as participants are able to ask these three college students, some of your guys’ questions about what it’s like going off to higher academics and studying at a university or another academic setting. So without further ado I do want to introduce our three college panelists. Brian, would you be able to go first and introduce yourself?
Brian:
Hello everyone. My name is Brian Barnes. I’ve already graduated from Dakota County Technical College with an associate degree in software development. I was a PSEO student, meaning that I could essentially graduate from high school and college at the same time. And now I’m working as a software developer at a company called Image Trend, which creates software for first responders and firefighters.
Shane:
Awesome. Thank you Brian. Glad to have your perspective here as a PSEO graduate who graduated with their high school diploma and their degree at the same time. Joshua, do you mind going next?
Joshua:
My name is Joshua Olukanni. I am currently a sophomore at the University of Minnesota. I’m majoring in psychology and have a minor in management. I am from Lawrenceville, Georgia. Happy to be here.
Shane:
Awesome. Happy to have you, Joshua. Steph, would you wanna introduce yourself next?
Steph:
Yeah, absolutely. Hi, my name is Steph Brown. I do use they/them pronouns, and I am a creative writing and counseling major at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I’m from Stillwater, Minnesota, but I decided to go to college out of state. I’m a senior. I’m currently the president of Sigma Tau Delta, which is our English Honors, which is English Honors nationwide. And then I am also one of the presidents for my school’s improv group, Lesley Improv. I also volunteer as an intern with Samaritans, which is a crisis helpline.
Shane:
Awesome. Thank you Steph. A lot of experience there, so I’m glad to have your perspective with those extracurriculars.
Steph:
Yeah. Glad to be here.
Shane:
Awesome. I’m going to just dive right into it and ask you guys questions and call on the three of you as we go about. First question. If you guys could give your high school self-one piece of advice, what would it be, and what might you do differently if you had a chance?
Joshua:
First off, I would say take as many AP classes as you feel comfortable ‘cause one thing that I’ve realized that a lot of my friends and I have discussed is how like the high school equivalent of certain classes are made easier due to being in high school, right? Like in high school, you know, all your teachers care more. Your teachers are often teaching smaller classes, so are, you know, able to spend one on one time with you and allow you to better understand the concept as opposed to when you get into college and have to take those classes, they’re oftentimes harder and that might create issues within like, you know, schedules and trying to get to your major-related classes. The other thing is just learning how to study better because for me in high school, I personally felt like I didn’t necessarily need to like sit down for hours and like look at content, so by getting to college and you know, being in a place that like calls for that a lot, I’ve realized that like I don’t necessarily have the best study skills and have had to like, you know, start developing them while I’m here. So those are my two things.
Brian:
Probably the most important thing I would say is take your high school seriously. It may be fun in games now, and you have a good time, but if you project yourself for years in the future, you’ll be super glad that you took high school seriously. And what I mean about taking high school seriously is getting As in your classes, taking AP classes, because a lot of times AP classes can actually transfer to your college of choice. In addition, you’ll also, depending on your high school, you are graded on a 5.0 GPA, meaning that you can boost your class rank. Also, I would probably say do really well on your standardized tests. I know that lately colleges and people have kind of got rid of the standardized testing, but some of the top universities still require standardized testing and you only get high school once and it’s really important how you make the most out of your high school. Some people, they may wanna play sports, which is great if you’re gonna be a sports player. Do super well in your classes, perform well in your sports so that you can sign a letter of intent. If you wanna be in STEM or engineering, do super well in your math courses. Go mingle with other engineers and take opportunities you have in high school because you have the time. In college, you won’t have much time. But in general study for these standardized tests. Yes, they may seem kind of boring or dull or why, what’s the point? It’s just the number, but nobody, nobody has said, you know what, I really, I feel so awful that I got a 35 on the ACT. I’m so bad. I’m so like upset. I wish I got a 23. No, it’s the other way around. So, I’ll just say, take your classes seriously, study hard and get good grades.
Steph:
For me, I think the biggest thing that I would say, especially just when it comes to academics, is to get an early start on battling whatever like pitfalls you might have. For example, for me, I have always been a really big procrastinator. That kind of works for me because I’m someone who works really well under pressure, but at the same time, that might not be true for everybody. I would really say just figure out like what thing you struggle with or want to improve the most on while you’re in high school and while you have kind of more time and energy to devote to that because it will really pay off in college, especially if that thing you want to improve on makes things more difficult for you when it comes to just like getting work done and getting it done well.
Shane:
What are some methods that you’ve learned throughout the years to kind of thwart that procrastination?
Steph:
One thing that I do kind of take with me is that I am someone who does work pretty well under pressure. However, if I procrastinated enough, I would be in a lot of trouble. What I actually like to do is look at the assignment and if it’s a big one, I tend to outline it so that when I am sitting down to do it, I already kind of have a divide and conquer way of thinking about it. I think for me it’s a lot of just like finding something that will help me stay focused, whether that’s like music or some kind of soundscape. For Me it’s definitely an auditory thing because I think my biggest problem and the thing that makes me procrastinate is that I can’t just sit down for hours on end and do a thing. I get really stir crazy if I’m just sitting in the silence typing. So I’m just like, I don’t wanna do it. But if I find something that will help me focus, then it’s a little easier.
Shane:
Thank you Steph. Joshua or Brian, do you guys have anything to add on the procrastination piece?
Joshua:
Personally, like I’ve realized for myself a way that I can end, like my procrastination is by doing work with other people. And I feel like there’s a fine line, right? Because sometimes you say that you’re gonna do work with friends and you know, y’all don’t end up actually doing work. Y’all are hanging out, talking. Typically, like an accommodation that I have is like this accommodation for access assistance, essentially like workers that work for the Disability Resource Center here, and it helps with different assignments that are not as accessible. I’ve found doing the work with them or like doing work outside of my bedroom helps me a lot ‘cause I just associate sleep and relaxing in my bedroom. Yeah.
Shane:
Brian, what assistive technology do you use to help you with college and living independently?
Brian:
I’m just going to preface this by saying that I have some usable vision. Not a lot, but some usable vision, and the way I’ve managed to use college and get through college is utilizing my accessibility department to get PDF eBooks and for people who have some vision, this is just absolutely wonderful because if you have like an iPad or a computer, you can zoom in on the PDFs, you get all the content you would get in a normal book, so you get the nice pictures and annotation and stuff, but you can zoom in as much as you want. And that has definitely helped me because some of the textbooks I’ve used required a lot of visual information. But sometimes I get eye strain and I just don’t wanna read. I’m actually still currently in college, I’m pursuing a second degree, and this degree, technical management, has a lot more reading than my previous programs. And so what I have done to kind of keep me focused and not get burnt out with reading is I utilize Bookshare a lot because I can just find the book on Bookshare for the most part and just hit play and let Bookshare read it to me. And I can also follow along and magnify too for extra comprehension. But that has definitely helped me in terms of reading. For general computer use in my specific field, and probably for a lot of yours, you’re gonna be using computers a lot. And for me, ‘cause I have little bit of vision, there is a built-in magnifier in Windows that does a really good job. You can just zoom in, move around, pan and do all of that stuff really easily. You don’t need to install any third party tools if you don’t need the extra features. And if for some reason I do need to read a lot of texts and there’s no Bookshare or anything, I do have a Chrome extension that allows me to read stuff on a page, and also if I need to, I can bust out NVDA, a screen reader to help read the screen for me. So that’s how I use assistive technology.
Steph:
I am actually a really big fan of the Voice Dream Reader app. You can find it on the app store. I know that it’s available for like Mac products, I don’t know if Android has it or not ‘cause I’m not an Android user, but it’s probably about 10 bucks, one time purchase. And with it I can read PDFs, I can read books, including those from Bookshare. Yeah, I can do quite a lot with it. And it reads really well, and it’s totally accessible. And what’s really useful with that is I can download articles from my school’s research library and then email them to myself and then add them to my Voice Dream library so that I can do the research that I need to do just like on my phone, which is very nice. I do wanna just reiterate, what Brian was saying about general computer use. It is so, so- at least for me, it has been so essential to have a computer and use it with college. And for me, I don’t have any usable vision at all, so I am always using NVDA. If you don’t wanna download anything, Windows does come with a screen reader called Narrator, but in my experience that has not been great. But NVDA is free, and it’s totally usable for sure with Windows, and I know Mac is pretty solid with voiceover. But yeah, that’s generally what I use.
Joshua:
I use JAWS as a screen reader, or Fusion. Fusion’s just essentially a mixture of JAWS and XoomText and whenever like something’s inaccessible or not working with JAWS, I just zoom in so that I read or look at. Other than that, I use like the magnifier on my phone, the magnifier on my iPad, other screen readers such as voiceover. That’s essentially it.
Shane:
Got it. So it sounds like a key takeaway there was that screen readers are a good piece of technology to be utilizing in college. What are some of the differences in the reading demands from high school to college?
Steph:
There are definitely some pretty significant ones, and part of that has to do with the fact that you are taking a more diverse selection of classes. For example, I’m taking a math class and that’s a gen-ed for me, and I don’t use a textbook at all for that class because we are solving problems that the professor sends. However, for pretty much all my other classes, there are reading demands and my experience of high school has been like, oh, read this short story or read, I don’t know, maybe like 20 or so pages. With college, it’s more like 80 pages for a textbook chapter, and you’re usually, in my experience, I’ve just had to read like one or two to prep for the next class. So you definitely wanna be staying on top of readings because there’s just so much content that is in there. Even if you don’t necessarily discuss it in the next class, I would say that you are missing like a pretty big chunk of material. I’ve even kept textbooks just in my library because I’m like, I want to be able to read these because there’s information that I never got to, but yeah, so you really wanna try and stay on top of those. It can get a little tricky just because oftentimes you are using text-to-speech or there is eye strain, or you don’t wanna read your braille display or whatever the thing is. And so it’s important to take breaks and it’s again, really important to kind of divide and conquer. Yeah, that’s it.
Joshua:
For me personally, in high school there was like next to no reading demand. There weren’t many pages that I had to read for classes. It wasn’t a lot, but comparatively to college, like you genuinely need to read the book for class, and textbooks are very wordy, very long. So I would most definitely say be good at using a screen reader so you can like use that to read it or use braille to the capacity that you can at reading those books, or if at all possible, use Voice Dreamlike was mentioned earlier.
Brian:
I’d like to kind of piggyback off of that and say that for me, in my case, your mileage may vary a lot. Some professors who absolutely no reading was required, however, that didn’t mean you could just not read because if you were in trouble you have to look stuff up and read on your own. So there’s definitely reading and some other professors I had to like read one or two chapters per week. Some of these chapters, especially in the more advanced courses are like, yeah, they’re pretty significant, 40, 80 pages of text and I’d just say if anybody’s going into software development and have trouble reading text visually, I highly, highly recommend you learning or really refreshing your braille skills and learning UEB and/or computer braille if you’re going into software development, because text-to–speech is just gonna miss so much stuff that you’ll be paying not learning braille by trying to reassemble what the text-to-speech is saying, where you could just learn computer or UEB braille and you could pick up all the intricate symbols and text that software development entails.
Steph:
And that’s so interesting too, because you know, you said computer braille and my brain went, oh, computer braille exists. That’s a thing. So it’s just so interesting how from major to major, what skills are helpful really depends on what you’re doing. Because I don’t use computer braille. But it is super useful, especially if you are in the program Brian was in. I just thought it was interesting.
Shane:
It sounds like Brian, you’ve realized that in having to be exact and know code, having some of that in braille and being up to date on that braille skill can help make sure that you’re following along correctly. You’ve got that exact knowledge of the character sequence that you need. How many students are there typically in a dormitory room?
Steph:
That really depends on what you wanted. So for me, my disability support services office allows you to ask for a single room accommodation, which is what I have. My room, it’s just me. Sometimes you’ll have situations where you have a roommate and you’ll have two people and sometimes you’ll have suites where there are three or four people. So definitely if that is something that matters to you, check with your colleges when you pick one. Accessibility services or disability services, every college has a different name for it, but check with them and see what they have to say or are gonna offer you when it comes to room and board accommodations.
Shane:
What types of accommodations can students with visual impairments receive in college?
Joshua:
Yeah, so this obviously varies from college to college. At my college, I see an ample amount of accommodations that you can get as a visually impaired or a blind individual. Some of the accommodations that I have are like extra time, access assistance, I mentioned a little bit earlier there are essentially just people that you schedule certain times with, if you have like an assignment or like a project or whatever that’s inaccessible and you need like someone to like visually look at it. I have like sitting preference, just essentially meaning like if I want to sit in the front row of the class, nothing can stop me from doing that. It always varies, you know, it depends on what you need. Those are just a few of mine.
Kate:
Here’s one question for all three of our panelists. Is there a big difference from a fully online PSEO class and a class in person at the college level?
Steph:
Oh my gosh, there’s a big difference. At least for me, there was, I’ve never taken an asynchronous class. I’ll be taking my first asynchronous next semester, and by asynchronous, by the way, I mean a class that has no sessions. You just do the work on your own time and the instructor’s materials are found online. The online classes I did take were on Zoom, and I think the biggest difference was just like how I processed the information because I was at home and there was just no like in person, you know, contact. And for me in-person is really how I connect with my professors. I go to a smaller liberal arts school, so it’s a little easier to kind of form relationships with your professors, but not so much when you’re online, at least for me, but that’s really just my experience with it. There are other students who really like it because they don’t have to deal with the O&M hassle of like finding classes, but I prefer the in-person. I think the main difference is that you’re on your computer. It’s either Zoom or it’s just through whatever your college’s like online platform is. I guess the way I see it, less personal, if that helps answer some things.
Shane: Yes. Thank you Steph. Brian, do you have any thoughts on that question, seeing that you’re a PSEO student?
Brian:
Just online or in person in general, I will say if you’re doing PSEO, I admire going up to the plate and diving in. But just in general, there’s a lot less handholding than high school. For example, DCTC for me, you’re treated exactly, essentially as a college student when you’re a PSEO student. So that means you are held at the same standard as a fully grown adult, meaning that you need to check your courses, you have to read the syllabus, the teacher won’t hunt you down to get an assignment in. At my college, there was a grace period because a lot of the teachers were really nice and understanding, and all that, but they won’t bug you like every single week, like, oh, get your stuff in, get your stuff in, oh, we have a quiz and all that. You have to check the class. So that translates both in person and online. But online adds a kind of more responsibility on you, depending on whether you’re doing synchronous, that’s attending the meetings virtually on Zoom or asynchronous where you do your work yourself without any teacher interaction. And if it’s the latter, the asynchronous, it’s a pretty major step from high school. Yes, some high schools do provide asynchronous online classes. Like for example, I took some health class and it was structured very well, and each week you were doing something and the assignments, there were a lot of points you could earn, the assignments were very explicit, but I’m taking classes right now, I’m doing a lot of online asynchronous classes. The grading is a lot less, meaning that, for example, I have a course that I’m taking that it’s 100 points in total divided by eight assignments, essentially. That means you need to go into the course, figure out what the expectation is, and do the assignments. And if you can do that and study and stuff, the course is a lot easier. But if you don’t, then you will potentially fail the course a lot quicker because each assignment each week is weighted more. So as a PSEO versus high school, I say that college, you have a lot more responsibility and the learning and synthesizing ideas is a lot more demanding, but you get the benefit of being treated as an equal citizen at the college and potentially graduating early from both high school and college, which I believe is a steal.
Shane:
Yeah, you know, right that’s a good point. One thing I talk about with all high school students is for college, there’s a shift in that in high school students have the IEP and in the IEP teachers that are mandated to help you be successful in high school, and track you down if maybe you’re turning in assignments late or having troubles keeping up with academics. One of the biggest shifts in college is that there is not an IEP team. There’s the office for students with disabilities, but you as a college student are required to seek out their services versus them coming to you, identifying you and putting forth your accommodations because they know you need accommodations. What was it like connecting with that office for students with disabilities and getting your accommodations?
Joshua:
Like I mentioned earlier, I’m not from Minnesota, so I essentially reached out to the one-stop student service that’s here on campus for me and explained my situation, you know, letting them know that I’m blind student, what resources are on campus. They put me in contact with our disability resource center, and I looked at all their information and filled out their forms that they ask you to fill out, like you know regarding information that they need from you. And then they assigned me an access consultant, they call it here. And essentially he is just my go-to person whenever like I need something or I need to like schedule an exam or I have a question on how to do something accessibility-wise or in pertaining to my disability. Yeah, that’s how I got in touch with my access consultant.
Shane:
Steph, can you talk about your experience connecting with your office, and can you also touch on that question about requesting braille as an accommodation?
Steph:
Sure. So the first thing about getting accommodations, this is actually kind of an interesting story and I’ll condense it. When I was looking into going to colleges out of state, instead of being in Minnesota, I actually really didn’t know who to ask for. So a lot of colleges actually looked really inaccessible. It wasn’t until I did a year at Perkins in Massachusetts that I kind of learned what to look for. For me, Lesley University has two offices for disability services. One is for physical disabilities like mine, and the other is for people whose disabilities are more like cognitive or mental health related. So for me, I spoke with them about accommodations and once they were able to determine that I did have a disability, they were willing to work with me and help me figure out accommodation letters and just how to go about certain things with more visual classes. Oh, and one thing I do wanna say about that is in college, the big difference here is that you really do need to reach out to disability services. Self-advocacy can be really hard. I’ll be the first to say that, I think that needs the space to be said. And it’s also so important when you are accessing those services and talking with those people about what you do need, communication is just really big. The other thing I wanna talk about, yeah, so in the chat there was a question that asked if you could request braille materials. So in my experience, that can get pretty tricky to do. The answer to that is yes and no. Yes, you can, but you need to do it very, very well in advance, and the school may or may not be able to help you with that. Also, though, they do really try to have you do that on a braille display if you’re going to do that, just because braille materials and books, especially college textbooks really do take up a lot of space, and honestly, it’s not likely that, you know, it really depends on the school you go to, but if you are going to use braille, I would recommend getting a braille display to use just because it’s highly unlikely that braille materials will be available for a lot of those things because it is a lot to do just because it’s so many book volumes. If anybody has a different experience with that though, I think that’s really valid and should definitely be shared. I just wanted to be frank about it because in high school I was a very heavy braille user and now I’m not, just because of how much college doesn’t do hardcover braille.
Shane:
Awesome. Thank you Steph. Brian, what was it like for you, so I know you’re at a two year school versus a four year university. What was it like connecting with their office for students with disabilities?
Brian:
It was a very relatively easy process. Every student has to go through orientation, and I did this during Covid, so that was all online and virtual. I also, during that time, I snooped around the website and the information about accessibility is pretty easy to find, but for those who don’t snoop around college websites, it’s really easy. They have links to the accessibility, so you click on it, you can fill out an interest form, or they have also a contact you can also use to contact the disability accessibility coordinator. Our department is fairly small, so there’s usually just one or two people working there. And then you just submit proof of disability, whether that’s, you know, A medical note, an IEP, anything that describes that you have a specific disability. So I just submitted a stub of my IEP. Self-advocacy is gonna get you a long way because if you already know what you need, like yep, I need extra time, I need front row seating, I need PDF textbooks, you can just list them out and the coordinator, for me at least, just wrote up an accessibility letter, gave it to me, and once you get that accessibility letter, you have to go to your teachers and present the letter to them saying, hey, here’s my accessibility letter, here are the accommodations I got, I would like to use blah, blah, blah, I wanna use extra time. And so that’s what I did with my teachers, but it was mostly online when I did it. But even when I did transition into in-person, I used preferential seating, which was very nice, and then for the alternative book formats, they gave me a form I filled out and I just go look at the textbook I want, jot down its ISBN and name a book, send it back, and they actually talked to the publisher, got a PDF copy from the publisher, and I could just download it to my iPad and use it. And if you don’t like PDFs, they also have access to Bookshare. So they can create you an account through Bookshare and allow you to read books from there. So my experience was really well, and if you know what your accommodations need, what your disability entails and what you may need, it’s pretty smooth sailing at that point.
Shane:
So it sounds like meeting with that office for students with disabilities, going to that meeting prepared with knowing what you may need for accommodations and being able to advocate for your needs, helps that conversation come along and helps you work with that access consultant or disability office staff to put together that letter of accommodation.
Kate:
This is Kate again. One quick comment, too, asking for those accommodations even if you’re not sure you’ll use ’em all, getting those in place before classes start is so smart ‘cause then you can choose to take advantage of ’em. But having ’em in place gives, like Brian was suggesting, it gives time for those publishers to be contacted for different formats to be available. So doing it preemptively as your semester or your term begins, that just gives you so much more time and then you can choose to access those, like Joshua was saying about seating, like you can access them when and how you want to, but they’re already in place. So those were such rad suggestions. Question from the group, if anyone is willing to share what it was like to learn how to navigate around campus, and you’re all on really different campuses, so I’m sure if anyone’s willing to briefly start, that’d be great.
Joshua:
As I mentioned earlier, I go to the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, so my campus is like essentially sandwiched between Minneapolis and St. Paul. But what I did was I started out very small, like when I was first new to this campus, I had an access assistant show me where my classes were, ‘cause like that was the most important thing to me, like knowing where my classes are on the first day of school and, you know, don’t wanna be late to any of your classes. But from there I just started like walking around, like, intentionally getting lost and then finding where like point A connects to point C and how point C connects to Point B and like how point like A, B, and C all connect. Personally, I just like walking around and kind of like exploring. After like the first time I had an access assistant helped me like find my classes, I haven’t had to do that ever since because you know, I at this point have a pretty solid map of how my campus is.
Steph:
When I was in high school, O&M was a really difficult skill for me and it still in many ways is. I’m a little different just like personality-wise than Joshua, in the sense that I tend to just like want to know where the places that I need to go are and then figure it out. But it still has allowed me to learn a lot of things about where things are on campus. So both styles of navigating are super valid. What I did is I actually have, I do work with SSB and I also work with MCB, which is Massachusetts Commission, just because, yeah, it’s good to have both of them. And I had someone from MCB show me where my classes were and have me do the routes. He was an O&M specialist. So yeah. So what happened for me was I learned where those classes were and then that helped me even just by like getting lost on the way to classes Helped me to kind of learn where other places were. So I was able to like kind of get the context and I guess I, that’s, you know, not entirely too true, I did do a little bit of exploring to learn where some things were, particularly in like the main building where the classes are for art school. I also now live in a dorm where like both the dining halls are right below me, which was not the case for me in my freshman year. I was actually across from the dorm that I’m in now. So I didn’t know where one of the dining halls was for my first year, but I knew where the others were. I had so much trial and error, I think, and just knowing how and when to ask for help getting somewhere ‘cause you don’t wanna be late. As fun as like figuring stuff out isn’t as cool as that, like, is gonna feel for you when you do, it’s also just really helpful to know when you need help and there’s no shame in that. Seriously, there’s not. I did wanna touch on a really, really quick thing that I forgot to mention in the question about disability services. I think it’s just so important to remember to like be kind because they are just people too. And I’ve seen things happen where students have come in while I was meeting with disability services and been like, this isn’t right and this isn’t right and this isn’t right, and it’s just really hard to watch just because it’s not very kind and it makes it harder to advocate and get the things you need. So really just, yeah, remembering to be kind. And I’m sure that you all know that, you’re all lovely, but I just thought it was important to bring up. Yeah.
Kate:
Would you set up a time with your professor individually to let them know about accommodations or would you typically email?
Brian:
So generally for me, before class starts, the number one thing I want to do with new teachers is build rapport, because it’s a tool that you can utilize later and it will definitely help you in the long run. So for me, I compile the list of professors and I send them an email saying hello, this is Brian. I’m doing software development. I have a disability, this is what it means and attach my accommodation letter, and during class could I have this preferential seating and all that, and might even just attach a picture, just, you know, for the kindness sakes, just to be nice. Then I just attach my accommodation letter, which for me was just a PDF signed by the disability person. I send it off, and 99% of the time the teachers are like, oh yeah, but we’re so happy, you know, for you to be joining the class, yeah, you know, if you need anything, we will help you. I did have one teacher, she was a very odd teacher where she never checked her emails, so I had to use a different strategy and you’ll adapt to your professors. You’ll know which ones like emails, which ones like in-person, but just as a blanket thing what I do is just send email and in addition with email, it’s pretty much permanent unless they delete it, which I don’t know why they would, but if they don’t, it’s permanent so that if anything happens and your accommodations aren’t met or you have a question, you can direct them back. While you can give the letter in person, I just find that people lose physical things a lot more easily than electronic emails for the most case. Except this one teacher.
Shane:
Thank you Brian. Looks like Bella has a question. Go ahead, Bella.
Bella:
How was navigating from class to class during college? Like how was it like on the first day? What did you experience?
Steph:
My first day of classes, I was really nervous because, I mean, I had a lot of similar questions like whoa, what is this gonna be like doing it for real? I don’t wanna be late for my classes, etc., etc. What’s really nice about my school is that because we have three campuses, we have a shuttle system. There were shuttles that would take you to where you needed to go instead of like needing to walk to campus. I think I’ve only walked to campus to get to classes like once, just because O&M-wise, again, it’s something I struggle with, so I’m really grateful for those shuttles. That’s not true for every school. They all have their own system of doing things, but for me, I think it was a lot of just really keeping track of what the classroom numbers were, because most of the signs are brailled at Lesley. Not all of them, but many. So it was just a matter of like kind of having a basic understanding of how classroom halls are laid out and how the numbering system works. And then from there, my first ever like college class, I got to the class and was like, oh my goodness, like this professor’s gonna be so scary or you know, whatever I thought. And he was my Italian professor for a gen-ed, and he was just so like, happy to see everybody. And it was 8:00 AM on a Monday, and you know, just all of that. And it was just, it ended up being a really great experience, but there’s definitely something to be said for feeling, you know, really nervous about, you know, navigating to classes for the first time.
Shane:
Yes. Thanks Steph. When you’re working with SSB, and you’re preparing to go off to a new environment, or a new campus, utilizing those orientation and mobility services can be really helpful, and that really starts at the high school level if you are getting orientation and mobility in the school, working on those foundational skills that will hopefully transfer when you are traveling on a college campus. Now, yes, getting some more focused training at the campus, that’s something that SSB is here for and we can help you out in getting that exact training. But like Joshua said, he got some assistance through the disability office learning his routes or where different classes were. So between SSB and the college, and starting off in high school working with your orientation and mobility specialist to develop those foundational skills, the hope is that between all of that, that will help you be ready for that first day of college and getting around to year classes successfully. Which- you guys have hit on already, which is around self-advocacy. Now any tips or pointers for advocating with the disability services office, advocating with professors or advocating with your classmates in college?
Steph:
I think that’s so much about code switching. And what I mean by that is you’re gonna use different words and you’re gonna speak differently to, you know, different people. If a student comes up to me and is like, and who- especially if they know me and they’re like, hey Steph, like, do you want help getting to wherever the class is? And I know where it is. I’m like, nah, like I’m good, thanks though. Like, you know, I’ll see you around, thanks. And with a professor, it really depends on the professor. There are some professors who I would try to be really, like really formal with, you know, just being like, yeah, like thank you so much for your help. I think I’m, you know, good to go here. Although if I can make my professor laugh, I will definitely be a little more relaxed about that. With disability services, they are a little more familiar with certain terminology like braille, O&M, what makes a thing accessible and what doesn’t. So it’s just knowing that these different groups of people come from different contexts and so yeah, just being really mindful of that is my best tip for that.
Joshua:
I would say personally overall, like was mentioned earlier, just be kind. I feel like when it gets to certain points, you have to be more assertive about like being kind and assertive while still advocating, is by like, you know, running like mental simulations in your head about like whatever situation you’re about to go into. Like whether it’s talking to your professor or you’ve noticed that like, you know, a student on campus wants to like, well, no, grab you, and they think they know where you’re going, now advocating in that sense, you kind of have to like mentally prepare yourself, or I personally do because it helps me like have a more calmer rebuttal while being assertive at the same time so they get the point. So it really just depends on the situation. But I would say rule one is, you know, being kind.
Shane:
Yeah. Kindness sure can go a long way. I’m going to the next one ‘cause I think this one is an important question. How do you find student life activities and clubs and do you have any tips for getting involved when some activities might not be accessible or you’re concerned about accessibility?
Brian:
Good question. I will admit that for my first year at school, I never participated in any student life activities at all. And it just so happened that I became really good at my classes and so someone recommended me to be a tutor and then I was finding a job in the summer. There was no tutoring needs in the summer, so I just became what they call a student ambassador, which is just a student employee, and the floodgates just kinda opened from there. So I have a lot of experience in student life activities. Couple of tips I would give is pay attention to orientation, take serious orientation because they give you a lot of nuggets of good information. Like, hey, there’s student clubs. Hmm, I’m interested in those student clubs, which kind of gonna tie into an overarching theme I have is look for opportunities to grow in your career and grow you as a person. And so is there a club that sounds interesting? Great. Inquire more. Do they have student employment there? Great. I highly recommend- it depends on the college, some colleges don’t. My college, we have the student employees and they get access to a lot of great opportunities ‘cause our college, one of the organizations, student body organizations, is called the Student Senate. And what they are the student government body of the college. So that means that all important administrative decisions, whether that’s cafeteria, books, tuition, all that goes through the students. We can hear from administrators, talk to administrators and make decisions, and because I became a student employee, it’s a butterfly effect. It’s kind of like one action leads to another, leads to another that leads to another. And I became a student employee and then all a sudden I became vice president of Student Senate and because I was vice president, I had wonderful things, like I organized a party for the college president so students could go and have pizza. That leads to another tip for student activities, be observant. I know some people are introverted, some people are extroverted, or ambiverted or whatever you wanna call yourself. And so you may lock yourself in your dorm room and that’s great, there’s definitely a time to do that. But there’s also time to just kind of walk around, observe what the college has, because you may miss out, for example, pizza with the president or bowling. Well, our college didn’t have dorms, so it’s a little trickier, but you kinda get the general gist. You may miss out on bowling, you might miss out on movie nights, you might miss out on pizza, you might miss out on great student-led opportunities because sometimes these positions, like in student government, are open and people don’t take them. So you can take them and get access to like organizing events, leading a blood drive and I came at the right time where the President of the United States, Joe Biden, came and visited our college to talk about the infrastructure bill that he was implementing. So he visited DCTC and I was able to sit close to him when he was giving his remarks about the infrastructure bill at DCTC and I thought that was a great experience and I would never have had that opportunity if I was not in student senate. So you may never know. Maybe the president will come to your college, who knows? Could happen. Wasn’t expecting DCTC to be there. So be observant, pay attention to your orientation and all the documentation that the college will give you about clubs and activities. And just even joining one or two, like I became a student employee and I thought, okay, this is great. I’m just gonna make money. I was not expecting shaking hands with a senator from Minnesotan Congress or anything like that. Now leading to talking about non-accessibility, I guess it’s just part of that self-advocacy. A lot of the clubs are organized by students at like, for example, DCTC. So these students will naturally not have any information about being accessible because you may be the only person, it depends on the size of the college, but you may be the only person or two or three people ever at your college, and at that specific year. So it’s very rare for someone to need to consider meeting people who are blind or legally blind. So this is a perfect opportunity to go to your club advisors, to go to your leaders and say, hey, here’s some things you could do. Maybe we can make this more, you know, friendly to people of all variety of disability. So you can be a voice through self-advocacy, and if your school has a student-led government body, you may also be able to join that and also join committees like accessibility committees. We have an accessibility task force at college where they will talk about do we need to add ramps to certain areas of the building, etc., and that’s a great way, if you think that student life activity is lacking accessibility or is not accessible, you can be a beacon of life for new students and also for you, so I would just highly encourage if any activities are inaccessible or anything, whether that’s student-led or at campus, just self-advocate, be winsome and kind, and just make the campus better than it was yesterday.
Shane:
Awesome. I think that’s a prime example of one thing can lead to another. And starting off in college, one thing for Brian led to him meeting the president, which I think is great. That’s also the same in the employment world. One opportunity can lead to another, one connection can lead to 10 connections.
So thank you, Brian. Joshua, would you wanna talk about your experience connecting with student life activities at clubs?
Joshua:
Yeah, personally at my school, we have like a website of all the like different clubs and activities on our campus. I go to a very large school, so I think there’s like 900 or something clubs. I’m sure like whatever school you all go to, there will be like a vast amount of clubs to pick from. But personally, when I got into clubs and extracurricular activities that I do, I’m currently part of three clubs on campus, two of them being psychology-related clubs, and then one of them is like an econ club. And I heard of the two psychology clubs through like word of mouth and people talking about it, my advisors, my friends, and the econ club that I am in, the president at the time and the vice president of the econ club, they came to the presentation in my macroeconomics class and they’re like, oh, you can join if you want to. So I went to the meeting and saw what it was about, very interesting, so I stuck around. Now they have different events like pertaining to like internships, and one thing that I would also say is don’t be afraid to venture outside of campus as well for extracurriculars and clubs because they are most definitely around, and who knows? People that go to the extracurriculars might be people who are in your college and you know, you might get to know them better. That is fortunately something that happened to me. Also, part of this, I guess you can consider an extracurricular called the Minnesota Association of Blind Students and four other people that are in, or three other people that are in student division with me are on my campus. So, you know, through that I’ve been getting to know them better and create more bonds with other people.
Shane:
Awesome. Thank you, Joshua. I would be remiss though if I didn’t let Steph talk about their experiences in clubs, the president of an improv group and president of Sigma Tau Delta club. So Steph, do you wanna take us off on this last question?
Steph:
Sure, Shane. Thanks. Getting involved with like student life, things like that, really actually got off to kind of a weird start. I didn’t get involved with the things that I’m involved with today, actually, until the pandemic, and here’s why. Every semester the student activities fair happens here and it’s on the main quad of the campus or it’s inside and it’s booth after booth of like people, like org members, just basically plugging their organization. And that made like getting to see everyone that I wanted to really hard, until we had our student activities fair over Zoom because of Covid, and then I went to the Lesley booth, you know, virtual booth and talked with them, and then I auditioned and then joined Lesley Improv and eventually worked my way up to being one of the presidents. As far as Sigma Tau Delta, that was more of an invite situation because it’s for creative writing and literature majors who have a certain GPA, and I’m a creative writing major and, yeah, I fit the criteria. So the president at the time invited me to join and so for a little bit I was just a member and then they were like, hey, there’s an opening for vice president. And I applied and I didn’t actually think I was like gonna get in just because I was so new. But for one reason or another, either because I, you know, fit the bill or Lesley is a very small school with an even smaller lit program, maybe I just got it, I got the position, our president graduated, so I moved up into the president spot and that’s really what happened with me. So the best thing I can say is, find a way to communicate with org leaders that works for you, whether it’s the president of like a glee club or whatever, just find a way to communicate with them, and then just put yourself out there, you know, find out where the thing is, ask for help if you need help finding the place that they’re meeting. You know, it really helps to kind of have some things that you’re passionate about, because that will help narrow down what to look for when you aren’t getting involved. That’s my spiel.
Shane:
Thank you Steph. That sounds like all three of you put yourselves out there and explored some unknowns and really became vulnerable to explore some new areas that you’ve never done before, and that’s led to some great things. I know Brian, we heard your story, Steph, you’re now the president of two groups and Joshua, you’ve just listened to some guest speakers in the class and said, hey, that sounds interesting and so you went to a meeting and hopefully that’s led to more opportunities for you. Talking that [unintelligible] club you’re in brought up potential internships, how often opportunities and just networking with your peers can lead to so many more connections. Like I talked about earlier, one good thing can lead to the next great thing or one connection can lead to 10 connections. So I think you three are all prime examples of taking that leap and making those connections. We’ve got five minutes left and I see Bella with her hand up. Go ahead Bella.
Bella:
I would like to add that this was a great opportunity for me to join because me personally, I’m planning to go to college after I’m done with MSAB here. So this is a really great course and I really enjoy it. So thanks.
Shane:
Yes. Thank you, Bella. We’re glad to have you. And I encourage anyone listening, if you thought of a question that we didn’t get to tonight, or if you are going about tonight and go, oh, I have a good question, please reach out to me, and I will get your question answered, whether it’s connecting with one of our three panelists at another time, or giving my input or another staff member’s input to that question. Please, if you think of anything, don’t hesitate to reach out. I think hearing from other successful college students is a great opportunity to put yourself in their shoes and think about how you can place your success in your journey going to college or going off and getting a job someday, because I think these self-advocacy conversations that we’ve talked about tonight also translate to the working world and working with employers. Kind of like a good theme of being humble and kind, how that can go such a long ways. That goes beyond the classroom and beyond academics, that really applies to a lot of areas of life. Like I said, this session is recorded. I will send it out to this list and I’m also gonna try and post it to SSB’s website so it’s available for others who were not able to join tonight. If you guys see anyone in your social life who you think they would benefit from this content, watch out for that recording. I will let you guys know. Thank you, Steph. Thank you, Joshua. Thank you, Brian. I think all of you guys kind of laminated some solid skills and solid abilities that are needed for success in college that I hope some of our high schoolers will think about and go home after this and think, yeah, you know, I really do need to be proficient in my reading skills to be prepared for college. Or, yes, putting myself out there and connecting with clubs can lead to multiple areas or multiple developments that’s gonna help you blaze your own success, make your own connections, and who knows, might lead to you meeting the president one day like Brian did. Thank you all for attending again. Thank you panelists for coming tonight. Thank you students, I know we have a few teachers here as well, thank you guys. I’ll definitely let all the teachers know when this recording is available so we can hopefully share that with more students as well. And thank you interpreters, I appreciate your guys’ support as well. Once again, thank you everyone. Have a great night.
Steph:
You too Shane!
Kate:
Bye everyone.
Jeff:
Be sure to contact your state services for the blind, your voc-rehab, and find out what they can do for you. Live, work, read, succeed. For more podcasts with a blindness perspective, check us out on the web at www.blindabilities.com, on Twitter @BlindAbilities, and download the free Blind Abilities app from the App Store and Google Play Store. That’s two words, blind abilities. And if you wanna leave some feedback, give us some suggestions, give us a call at 612-367-6093. We’d love to hear from you. A big shout out to Chee Chau for his beautiful music, you can follow Chee Chau on Twitter @lcheechau. I want to thank you for listening and until next time, bye-bye.
[Music] [Transition noise] -When we share
-What we see
-Through each other’s eyes…
[Multiple voices overlapping, in unison, to form a single sentence]
…We can then begin to bridge the gap between the limited expectations, and the realities of Blind Abilities.