Podcast Summary:
What does college look like when you’re blind or have low vision? Maddy and Ben bring that question to life with honest stories, practical advice, and encouragement for students preparing for their next chapter. In this Tools for School episode, hosted by Minnesota State Services for the Blind, they explore choosing a college, navigating campus, managing course loads, and discovering the freedom—and responsibility—of greater independence. Maddy shares her journey from community college to the University of Minnesota, while Ben reflects on rebuilding his independence after losing his sight and graduating with law school ahead. Their experiences highlight assistive technology, tutoring, financial support, and advocating for accessible coursework. Students will find relatable voices and useful strategies, while parents and teachers will gain insight into supporting independence. From learning unfamiliar routes to documenting accommodation requests, this conversation offers a realistic, hopeful look at building confidence and finding your place in college.
Links of Interests:
To find out more about the services provided at State Services for the Blind, and what they can do for you, contact Shane DeSantis at shane.desantis@state.mn.us or call Shane at 651-385-5205.
Full Transcript
{Music}
Jeff: Welcome to Blind Abilities. I’m Jeff Thompson. Getting ready for life after high school means making decisions, learning new skills, and figuring out what support will help you move forward.
That was the focus of Tools for School, hosted by Minnesota State Services for the Blind
on October 23, 2026, at the Minnesota Department of Education in
Minneapolis. The event brought students, parents, and educators
together to explore assistive technology and digital skills for college, career training, and employment through interactive panel discussions and demonstrations.
participants explored tools and strategies they could put to work in their own lives.
We’re bringing you these sessions as separate episodes in our Tools for School series, giving each conversation its own space. In this episode, we hear from two people who bring firsthand experience to the transition from high school to college.
Maddy is studying at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, after earning her associate’s degree at Normandale. Ben recently graduated from the University of Minnesota and
is preparing for his next step: law school.
Together, they share what helped them choose a college, adjust to greater independence,
navigate campus, and manage their classes. They also talk candidly about accessibility barriers, working with professors, and learning when to ask for help—
and when to speak up.
For students considering college, this is an opportunity to hear from people who have faced
many of the same questions. Their experiences show how skills, support, and confidence
develop as you go.
Here’s Shane DeSantis guiding the conversation with Maddy and Ben at Tools for School.
We hope you enjoy.
Shane: Now we’re gonna hear from two college students who have been to high school now in college, doing many things and what their transition was like from, from high school education, having an IEP, which we talked about, which is a great thing to in college, not having an IEP, but still having access to some great services and accommodations. So I’m gonna let them introduce themselves..
Maddy: Yeah. Hello. So I’m Maddy. Some of you I’ve met before, but many of you I haven’t. so excited to be here. I’m currently in my second year at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. I am double majoring in sociology and technical writing communication minoring in business law. Prior to my time at the U. I got my associate’s at Normandale. So also kind of come in here with some of that community college experience. And yeah, I have stargardt’s disease. So my central vision is she’s not there. Um, she’s not, but um, yeah,
Voice: Oh, that’s too bad.
Ben: Hello, I am Ben. I recently graduated from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, majored in psychology, minored in entrepreneurship and business management. I have bilateral optic nerve atrophy, so I’ve been blind for about seven years, give or take. So I actually don’t have any vision at all left. But I have full vision prior to that currently in the process of applying to law school, so we’ll see how that goes. And I’m also currently the president of the Minnesota Association of Blind Students. Some of you guys know what that is. Be happy to connect more if you guys have questions.
Shane: Yes. And I heard one tidbit of the seminar that they have time to talk a little bit more about that. But first off, thank you both for being here. You know, it’s just kind of you to me that we have two students who both go to the same university. So a little skew there in what this was suppose to be like. But my first question for you guys is, what made you choose the college that you go to, and what did you find was the most or some of the most important decisions in choosing where you went for college.
Ben: I’m holding the mic, so I’ll go first. The University of Minnesota is a. Well, it’s right here in our backyard and it’s pretty highly ranked at almost everything it does. It’s not the best at anything, I don’t think. But it’s very highly ranked top five in psychology undergrad, allegedly number one PhD physc ranked 22 in law school. So it’s very good.
Voice: It’s number one for eating apple Honey Crisps apples.
Ben: I like the cosmic crisp apple of Washington.
Voice: I like I could go on.
Ben: but the other big consideration I had was I applied to UW Madison in Chicago as well. I got into those schools as well. And their financial packages just pale in comparison to the universities blind tuition waiver. You will graduate. I think I spent $7,000 out of pocket after scholarships, Pell Grant and SSB support. You will be in a great position afterwards financially to pursue what you want to do, whether that be getting a job straight from university, applying for an advanced degree or getting more certifications. You will be in a great financial position to springboard to the next thing without worrying about loan payments.
Maddy: So I guess first, I’ll talk a little bit about why I went to Normandale and about that time I did the program, so I was still in high school when I chose to go to Normandale, and essentially I went there because I felt like it was had the classes. It was mainly the variety classes. So I went to Normandale because I had a really good variety of like online courses because that’s what I was mainly taking. And then I ended up staying, because at the time I was planning to maybe go to the U. Senior year for SEO. And I ended up staying at Normandale because I just really liked it. I found the disability services Good. They gave me my first job. Yeah, it was a good experience. Then senior year of high school rolled around and I definitely was had been considering the U. I mean, it’s very close. And I pay for college myself, you know. So the cost definitely played a factor into that. But I also found that since I really was debating if I wanted to go to a big university or possibly like try a smaller liberal arts college. So I ended up really liking the scale of the U. Because there’s so many opportunities there. And actually, like when I went to the last Tools for School, the U’sd disability services that was here and she kind of like her presentation convinced me because I remember she was like, you have a right to learn in any class, so you shouldn’t need to consider your disability when you’re registering for classes, which is not the case at every school. Some schools, which is and, you know, it’s really a personal thing. Some people prefer it to have this disability services have knowledge of what classes are already made accessible. But I really like the U’s approach to it. And because it’s such a big school, there already are a lot of blind students there. I was kind of ready to not have to feel like a trailblazer, and I am not. So which is nice. And it’s refreshing. Yeah. And kind of like on the ethical issue you were not gonna have if you’re blind, you’re not gonna be leaving with, you know, $72,000 of debt, like worst case scenario. Yeah, you’re paying maybe 20,000 out of pocket the whole your whole time there, but a lot of people don’t pay that much. I don’t owe that. But if you want to talk about scholarships and financial aid, I also you can come to me because I definitely have some experience with those. But yeah.
Shane: Maddy is our scholarship barrier in the room. Maddy is a go to.
What would you guys say was the biggest or one of the biggest adjustments during your first semester of college?
Maddy: I would definitely say probably just the independence and. Yeah, basically just independence. I lived on campus. I lived in the dorms and being able to like basically do whatever I wanted. What I wanted was new because, I mean, my parents weren’t like helicopter, but obviously there I lived with them. So they know what I’m doing. But so it definitely took some adjusting, just like figuring out, okay, I haven’t had my time before, but not like this because no one is there to like, you should need to be able to keep yourself accountable, which might sound scary, but I actually really loved being able to have the freedom to do what I want when I wanted, especially at school like you were, is literally just endless things to do. I really found that to be like fulfilling and kind of a positive transition.
Ben: I would say very similar to Maddy. It’s you have so much independence. For me, it was a return to form. I was formally 100% sighted, drove around, was fairly independent prior to going blind right before my senior year. So I went to Blind, Inc,, got my skills and well, basically two weeks before I graduated blind Inc, and started university all in that short period of time. So it’s a test of if I learn anything at all. And thankfully I’ve gotten enough skills to get by. And like Maddy said, there is so much to do on campus. It kind of gives you some indecision paralysis. Thankfully, I took a lot of credits, so I had less time. I could just focus on school, but living on campus is a big adjustment because where I live prior you could follow an address system. The streets made sense. The campus is not. So you can’t use Google Maps, you can’t use Apple Maps, even Soundscape. It’s not very accurate. It’s very irregular and disorganized. So you got to really learn the campus slowly.
Shane: Yeah, question. Go ahead.
Voice: Um, nice to see you again, Maddy.
Maddy: Good to see you too.
Student Voice: Yeah. I wanted to know, how is it in college? How do you guys get around and all that?
Maddy: What I will say is I was very, I, I mean, I, you know, did own home all through high school. However, I was pretty confident in my skills, but still actually doing it on your own is, was so scary. But honestly, like, and the U is a really big campus, but you kind of have to keep in mind that you’re not going somewhere new every day. So just like at your high school where you go to your same classes and have routine, like you kind of only need to learn a lot of things. You just need, you might struggle with it once and then you’re good to go. So like before classes started, I would just kind of wander around campus and find them and make sure I knew where the rooms were and everything. And this is something, I mean, the sighted people do this too. It’s because especially at the campus, it can be confusing for anyone. So yeah, I mean, I’ve found it to be not as hard as I thought it would.
Ben: Yeah. So echoing a lot of the same things Maddy said, it’s a lot of trial and error. If you guys are familiar with the term structure discovery, it’s a more of my form of if you mess up, you mess up, but you learn from that error. You slowly, like my home base was. I started at the Comstock dorm. If you guys are looking for a dorm, that’s a good one. And we bumped out of all the washing machines and basically trained the staff on how to, I guess, interact with us in the dining hall and so forth. That’s my starting point. And every day I would kind of wander out and kind of explore and I guess, unlock new parts of the campus. Obviously, at the beginning of the semester, you start out, you know, you’ll leave 45 minutes early to get to class, and you’ll be there 15 minutes early. And as you go on, you’re like, all right, now I know the campus well. I’ll leave 15 minutes before class, get there in ten minutes because you actually know you can do that.
Student Voice: But okay, so, um, it says here, um, SSB will only pay for textbooks and supplies that are required and only after financial aid and financial space is applied. What does that mean and what does it take? Spares.
Ben: You are referring to the student handbook if I am not own.
Student Voice: Yeah.
Ben: Yeah. So basically you. When you get to the. You. I’ll just use the you because that’s what I know. That’ll take all of your scholarships into account, minus any merit based scholarships. My instinct. Yeah. So if it’s merit and you earned it because you’re good at school for some other reason, if it’s merit based, they won’t take that into account. They’ll factor that into how much they’re willing to pay and shamed. Correct me if I’m wrong, but that sounds like the correct explanation. And then over a certain amount you might be responsible for.
Student Voice: And that has to pay out of pocket the economic cost. So you could are much lower than for a person that looks cool than other pirates, cool. Or like a public school state, right?
Ben: Based on my small sample size of myself, I paid about $1,000 a semester because I graduated in seven semesters out of pocket. Compared to my sighted friends, they paid a lot more out of pocket, but their parents paid for that. So it’s a different thing. But I would say I paid at least ten times less.
Shane: Do you still have a question?
Student Voice: Yes.
Shane: Go ahead.
Student Voice: My question to you both is. So when leaving, say you want to go to the mall with your friends or go somewhere else. Do you guys have like a certain bus stop you guys go to all the time? Or like, for example, if you’re going between campuses, is there like a bus that is designated within the school that you guys take?
Ben: I’ll answer this one because I did take a lot of the public transit out of because I physically couldn’t make it to class in time. They had be on the East Bank campus class, then a West Bank campus class, and an East Bank campus class less than 15 minutes in between. So you have your campus connectors and your campus circulators. Those pick up and drop off like roughly every 10 to 15 minutes at different points on the East and West Bank campus. If, for whatever reason, you have to take a transit or a campus circulator to the Saint Paul campus, I advise. Please don’t take any classes that far. You will be traveling 45 minutes in one direction. There’s also the public buses, so I usually did the route free bus, but there’s plenty of public transportation options available. I personally don’t have a lot of experience using the University of Minnesota’s Paratransit because they have one. But I do know of a student who heavily utilized it so I could ask if they’d be happy to connect with anyone that would like to learn more about that.
Student Voice: And is there a light rail? Light rail system in Minneapolis. And I know there is that one. How to look into it. But in Minneapolis.
Ben: Yes, the Green Line goes directly through the heart of campus. It drops off at Stadium Village, East Bank campus and West Bank as well.
Student Voice: Good public transit.
Ben: Yes, you can get almost anywhere on campus in about 5 to 15 minutes, depending on how fast you can get there.
Student Voice: But I think overall it’s also very important overall.
Shane: I’ll try to go by the next hand up, Riley. You’re next.
Student Voice: And what was for you, when you initially went blind? How was your transition to knowing you, I can’t drive anymore, how fast did you have to learn public transit?
Ben: I went blind three days before my senior year in high school. A car hit me going 45 miles an hour. So I went blind. Woke up out of my coma in about 15 odd days. Thankfully, SSB connected to me very fast while I was physically rehabbing and learning how to walk and so forth in the hospital. And I finished high school on time. Shane was like, all right, well, I got my Staff training at Blind Inc. and he suggested I go there. I spent about a year at blind doing the comprehensive training program. And, you know, it’s more like relearning how to be independent again, in a completely unique way versus, you know, sure, it sucks that I can’t drive anymore, but getting a cane and learning how to walk up and down streets and cross streets and travel independently is the next best thing. And we’re not so far. Would that be doing great work to make sure that our right to use auto self-driving vehicles are enshrined in law, and soon enough, maybe there will come a day where I can drive the car myself, but I won’t need to drive the cars. Does that answer your question or.
Student Voice: Yeah. Yeah, I think, just like, shoot now I can’t drive, I can’t help, I need to learn this now.
Ben: We gotta go, go, go. I mean, it’s a day by day process. You’re not gonna get to reading Braille in the span of a day. And I still kind of suck at reading Braille, but that’s because I chose not to practice it and just chose to do technology in excessive amount. So because I was like, all right, do I need technology or Braille more. In an ideal world, Both. But immediately I needed tech to get through college. So if anyone in here is slowly losing their sight or learning to adapt, it does get better. But you will never be more than you are if you only do what you can do today. So please push yourself.
Shane: So Ben dove into that training, got those skills and went off to college. Go ahead.
Student Voice: I have a question about like tutoring support to college? Did you guys utilize any support in college with classes that you struggled with? And do they have services that help blind or visually impaired students? How does that all work?
Maddy: So yes, yes, yes, I actually worked at Normandale. I worked as a chemistry tutor and then at the U. I did research to make the writing center. I like the usability testing for the writing center. I work to make the appointment making process and process more Accessible, but they really want any student to be able to access those services regardless of disability or anything. So like they, in my experience, are very willing to work with you and at the you, a lot of the systems are already like made accessible, but even if they’re not, I would assume probably at any school, like, because often the services are one on one. Like you can really just work with your tutor to do what works best for you. But I know a lot of Blind students will use, especially like the writing services can really be really helpful, even just like check over like formatting. And it’s something that all students should be using because once you get into college, you’re going to have to write three different essays, all in three different citation styles. And there’s going to be so many different formatting rules. So being able to get that extra set of eyes on it to want to make sure it all looks good, like visually, but also just to make sure all your ducks are in a row for like, the, you know, rules of writing. Yeah. I haven’t ran into any access issues.
Ben: I will, I guess, start off with the smallest thing and move our way up to the biggest thing. So for small fixes, you guys can come learn more. We’re hosting a, uh, Minnesota Association of Blind Students seminar next Friday. You guys register and you guys can find me. After this event, there will be free pizza, and you start at 12 and the seminar begins at one. And we’re going to go into a lot of different topics. And I will be speaking on AI and how to use it all to effectively get through school. On formatting. One of those things, you know, you could ask AI to format that’s, I guess, okay, but normally what you can do is it’s smarter. So I’ve trained my personal version of ChatGPT to have the instruction manual for Jaws and a lot of auxiliary platforms such as Microsoft Word. I’ll ask it, teach me how to do X, Y, and Z. So if I want to change the font, it’ll tell me how to do that. If I want to get the headings set up, it’ll teach me how to do that. The next step up after that is the access office at the U gives you what are called access assistants. So you can do outside of the class hours with them, which is where they sit down and help make inaccessible material accessible. So they’ll read, you know, if it’s an inaccessible PDF and it wasn’t converted in time, they can read that for you. Sometimes you can have them formatted for you. I don’t advise getting into the habit of making the access assistant do things that you should be able to do yourself, because it’s just building a poor habit. And last I checked, the University of Minnesota’s entire campus is an AIRA access. So you guys can connect to AIRA and you guys can have the AIRA employee help format your document or look it over if you have them connect using some kind of remote access to it. And please reach out to your professors and their TAs because they’re more than happy to help you, assuming that they have time, that the professor doesn’t have time. They’ll probably offload you to a TA, but they can do a lot of that kind of, you know, last minute look over or give me feedback as well.
Shane: Go ahead Ava.
Student Voice: This is for both of you but, it’s kind of specific to like freshmen kind of stuff. Like for me, I’m a senior, like I’ve taken a lot of stuff that I know that we’ve talked about that like, so like, did you tape and like, I know you guys experiences were different with like with Blind Inc and with like having Takeing SEO, but like, did you take a lighter load your first year of college or did you like, because you had so many generals or like, did you have to like finagle your schedule a lot? Or did you just do like a pretty normal, like unaccommodated, like schedule?
Ben: Maddy. will have to, I guess, answer for herself. I did 12 credits my first semester, which is technically under a full load because the U is 13. For some reason, I had about two semesters of SEO credit myself going into college and 3 or 4 AP credits that got accepted. That probably helped me graduate in seven semesters, but after that, I also averaged around 16 credits a semester. So use that first semester to kind of gauge how you’re doing because it’s a big adjustment period. There’s going to be more than just school on your mind. That first semester. So I would recommend take it slow, gauge how you’re doing and if you think you can handle it after everything else, wrap it up slowly.
Maddy: Yeah, I guess what I’ll say is I think I probably took like 15 credits my first semester. I mean, honestly, like, it’s kind of depends on what you’re coming in with. Like, because I got my associate’s, I had zero generals to do and the AP credits. So some of them transferred, but I, I don’t even know if I use any of them, but not. I don’t want to, I guess. What are you looking to major in?
Student Voice: I want to do like a double major in psychology and English.
Maddy: So what I will say is every professor is different and like every AP, high school teachers are too. But like I have not ran into a class yet that was astronomically harder than an AP course. I’ve had many classes that are much, much easier. So I wouldn’t be super worried about the workload because also you can always drop courses within the first week or two because some courses will also like it’ll be three credits, but it should be five and some courses will be four, and it should be like one because there’s just some courses don’t have that much work and some have a ton of work. So it really is dependent on like, which is hard. Not probably not the answer you want, but it’s kind of like you have to take it semester by semester and just kind of see what the classes end up looking like once you get the syllabus and stuff. But usually what I do is I will register, like when registration opens, I will register, register for like more classes than I actually plan to take. And then as it gets closer, I’ll go and drop whatever I want to drop once I like actually know what my plan is for that semester. Because also sometimes you’re, you might, by the time you get to classes, you might have a job that you didn’t have when you were registering. So definitely being flexible is really good, especially when it comes to like figuring out course load and registration and everything because yeah, classes do fill up.
Student Voice: So I’m so, um, question is like, so I was doing, I looked at the elevators, um, at the very, very inaccessible because that just want to read what I saw. Um.
Ben: Do you mind? I guess. Which buildings were these in? Because I have fairly extensive use of, I guess elevators on campus
Student Voice: I forgot, I, I know it’s, uh, it’s near the Mariuchi.
Ben: Okay. I think I know which building you’re talking about. It’s the one over there on Church Street because it’s probably really old that I mean, a lot of the stuff I’d say most elevators have Braille. And even if they don’t, you know, we live in a, what I call a sighted world. So a lot of this stuff is just going to be you got to roll with the blows and unconventional methods, which is hit every single button and get out and see where you are. And then you. Otherwise, you know, oh, yeah, maybe it’s this one. Okay, well, you’re over this floor. Let me go. Three buttons up from the top.
Student Voice: If you’re able to read with your fingers, which I would recommend anyone to do if you’re able to read numbers in print, like engraved perimeter figures. That is also huge. Found that out actually when I was in Europe and I’m like, what the heck? They don’t have Braille. Well, apparently because the UK and the EU are just not on top of things. But I did feel the elevator told me they do have a decent size, like decent sized font for their print numbers that are raised. And if you can by any means necessary, please try to learn those because that will help you in the case that there’s not Braille.
Ben: And you’re probably going to have to do a lot of unorthodox methods. And that’s one of them reading raised print. Well, the other one, you can do, John and Jesse went over this. There’s the four finger triple tap function on the iPhone voiceover, and it’ll bring up a little menu. And there’s a point in read function so you can point. And if you know what you’re pointing at, if you have enough vision or feel it, it will tell you to read what you’re pointing at.
Shane: That looks like something you’re going to demonstrate later, if we can. I have a question for you guys. Can you each share a time where you faced a scenario where either your class or something in the college realm was not accessible? What did you do to problem solve that and what was the outcome.
Ben: I have one, I took a business Excel course. Technically, it’s not inaccessible. It just wasn’t great to do it on Mac because Mac doesn’t really do a great job of reading Excel, and the professor taught it exclusively in windows, so it’s not exactly inaccessible, it’s just not optimal. I worked with the professor and I worked with SSB. John will remember this to get a loaner computer, basically the same one I had while learning jaws from that summer to me and me and that professor. You know, you just talk to your professors and negotiate and advocate and it goes a long way. I did that course in 12 weeks, and that’s a 15 week course. So I sped up the content and met with the professor out of class to have her essentially personally tutor me and teach me that course. So that’s one form of accommodation, I guess you can say. And she went on to write me a letter of recommendation for law school.
Student Voice: So I would say like overall, despite the modern world we live in, like there’s obviously places that wasn’t mentioned. I mean, certain countries and he does very big by defense, by developed country, you know, how much they have. And like, you know, you have to flow, did you move in the US? It varies a lot. You have to flow with it even with not good. No, overall I’d say.
Maddy: Yeah for sure. I think that it’s hard for me. I mean, I feel like every everyone everyone’s doing, I don’t know, but if this is your chance, but you probably run into something that technically isn’t accessible, but then you get so used to problem solving around it that it just becomes normal. So like, I feel like even like some of my classes there will be like in-class activities. So like you might be to pick a random card out of the little bag and pick another one and like connect the two concepts or something or like a pop quiz or something. And a lot of it just comes down to like, don’t shut down. Like just come up with a, because you can go to this building resource center and like complain and have them go through. But a lot of times, like Ben said, you are going to, it’s going to be better for everyone if you just go straight to your professor because also, once you bring up these issues, then they know think about it in the future, and you probably have a solution in your head that they might have even more insight into what this upcoming in the course.
Student Voice: And don’t think you shouldn’t. assume that attempt immediately. If you want to say, oh, what they what they want, or you can always get back to people and say, what they want.
Maddy: Yeah, no, I’ve never ran into a person ever who purposely makes something inaccessible. Yeah. So I don’t think, like you said it earlier, it’s really easy to get kind of negative on yourself and think that you are your life is so hard, which not saying that anyone, everyone’s life is hard, but sometimes it can be when it is you feel isolated or whatever. Like understanding that everyone in this room Blind does have privilege because we are, we’re in the United States where things are much more accessible than many other countries. And you’re in school like you have all these things going for you. So even when you’re in those like inaccessible situations, being like, well, I can make this work and just kind…
Student Voice: Of, yeah, you’re right. I mean, being around, I mean, we’re within probably within the top 30 or 40 most accessible countries in the world and one of the most accessible states in the US. So we’re pretty privileged. I mean, don’t feel like it if you asked about the data.
Ben: I do have a cautionary tale. I’m not saying that you’re naive because I am the same way, which is document everything, get everything in writing, be used for the love of God, and don’t just take the professor’s word at face value. Either get a recording of it and or preferably what I do is email it. So there’s a paper trail you can reference. I had a professor that was like, oh yeah, she’s basically out there bragging. Yes, they hired me because I’m an expert in diversity, inclusion, equity, and accessibility. And this is a bio site caused a lot of very tactile models. You’re going to need to say very detailed. But then immediately after she walks over, he’s like, all right, so how do I make this accessible? To 99%. Sure, it’s not my responsibility. And I finished that class with a C minus because it was not accessible. Well, if we took all, she was like, oh, I’ll take away all the what do you call it, late points, because we were trying to figure out a way to make it accessible. That’s what she said, like not in writing. So I had no action or recourse. And I never took away those late penalties. So we took away those late penalties. I think I had 480 points out of 500 total possible. So somewhere around 98% and the Access office couldn’t do anything because they can’t retroactively, I guess, fix those kinds of things. So if there is an issue, don’t assume malicious intent. Document everything. And I’d say if things don’t change by week four, go to the access office at that point, because anything later than that, there might not be a chance of passing the class like. I managed to skim by.
Thanks to Maddy and Ben for
sharing their experiences and
giving us a closer look at the transition to college.
From finding your way around campus to
speaking up for the access you need,
there’s a lot to learn—and
hearing from those who have been there
can help you prepare for your own next steps. And
thank you to State Services for the Blind for bringing students, families, and educators together for Tools for School.
We’ll continue sharing more conversations, demonstrations, and resources from the event in upcoming episodes.
Follow Blind Abilities wherever you get your podcasts to catch the next installment in our Tools for School series.
I’m Jeff Thompson. Thanks for listening.
{Music}
Jeff: Be sure to check out and subscribe to the Spectacle newsletter and learn about all the upcoming events and opportunities, and be sure to check out the numerous podcasts on the news for teens page, and you’ll find the links right in the show notes.
To find out more about all the programs at State Services for the Blind, contact Shane.DeSantis@State.Mn.us
That’s Shane dot d-e-s-a-n-t-i-s at state.mn .us.
{Music}
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.
[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.