[Blindmath] engineering for blind students

[Peter Wolfe]

Kartik Sawhney:,



   Are you looking for brick and morta schoolong or internet purely
based courses in engineering? Online ngineering is a joke if a college
is requiring you out of that in my opinion cause you need a ground
work bases for it physically. I'm in computer science courses coming
up this fall and we have particular computer labs on campus for
computer science majors to use. If you need to show the professor your
difficulty in tactical means you would be better suited directly
physically with your teacher. If you did a half-half approach, which
my college at Auburn University doesn't do you could perhaps do some
nonengineering courses that way. What exactly are you wanting out of
your office for students with disabilities? Here at my University they
convert formats like powerpoints to word or html for you as a student.
They attempt in a timely manner to get your book in an alternative
format with the time permited by the instructor's announcement to get
the book from them directly like the title and isbn number or whatever
to get permission from the publisher directly for that alternative
format request. Otherwise, they will have to scan it in manually which
wil take sometime in doing. The projects are largely your
responsability and my school doesn't have that many resources itself
because each PSD in my opinion gears itself around a particular
disability in my opinion and the others are shoved out more or less.
My school it's the physically handicapped and others its hearing
impaired JSU or formerly for the blind though not anymore. If you are
expecting that people do the actual materials for you, you would be
wrong. There is no pity in the U.S system at all even if you have
proof the system works like you are a normal student and should adapt
or utterly fail without incident.

On 7/10/10, Vincent Martin <vmartin at mindspring.com> wrote:
> Kartik Sawhney:
> I have studied engineering while considered to be sighted, low-vision,
> legally blind, and now totally blind.  Here in the US, it truly depends upon
> which university you attend and what level of assistance the school
> provides.  The larger and more prestigious the university normally means
> they have a better disability service center that deals with a variety and
> myriad of disability related issues.  Coupling this with the relevant laws
> that require that schools make their curriculum accessible can make getting
> an engineering degree totally feasible while being totally blind.  Sometimes
> a smaller school may not be prepared to provide what you need because of
> lack of experience and the cost of providing the accessibility necessary.
> Now, this does not guarantee you that the school will be any good at
> providing service or if they have ever dealt with a person that is blind
> that is pursuing a science or engineering based discipline.  Being the first
> in some cases, can be a blessing or the worst nightmare imagineable.
>
> Most professors have never dealt with a person that can not see what they
> are doing on the boards and truly have difficulty in adapting their teaching
> style to accommodate a blind student.  This is where the disability services
> coordinator usually comes in  in assisting them.  There are the times where
> the professor department are truly fascinated or don't really see a
> difference in you as a student and go out of their way to make sure that
> they give you what you need in the format that you need.
>
> I currently attend Georgia Tech as a graduate student in the School of
> Psychology.  My Master's concentration is in Human Computer Interaction
> which meshes Computer Science with Engineering Psychology and my Ph. D.
> portion will probably be in the form of Cognitive Psychology with an
> emphasis in Perception and Spatial Analysis.  My advisor specializes in
> auditory displays of information so it is a natural fit for me to be
> studying under him and in this department.  Yesterday, he e-mailed me that
> we have added a post doc that is going to be the co-coordinator on my
> accdessible statistics project the next couple of years.  With his and other
> sighted assistance, the goal is to make sure that access to Statistics
> becomes as accessible as possible for low-vision and blind students and
> researchers.
>
>
> Georgia Tech had its first low-vision/legally blind student in 1969 and has
> graduated a number of totally blind people the past forty years.  My other
> alma mater, southern Poly now has had only one legally blind and totally
> blind student the past forty years and I was both!  The schools are only
> twenty miles from each other, but can be many more miles apart in
> accessibility and idealogy.  One school is approximately 5,000 students in
> size and is a leader in applications based technology and the other is
> 20,000 and is world reknown in all forms of research.
>
> I am on the graduate advisory board of Southern Poly and am helping to make
> the curriculum totally accessible to all disabilities.  The second totally
> blind student will be enrolling in the Fall and will pursue Computer Science
> as his major.  This means that the mathematics department, Physics and
> Chemistry department, and the department of Computer Science will really
> have its hands full getting ready.  The incoming Freshman truly does not
> know exactly what he needs, while I lost my vision in college and returned
> later as an experienced rehabilitation engeer.  With my assistance, we
> intend to make his experience as rewarding and accessible as every one
> elses.
>
> So, it can be done and you can truly function in this discipline totally
> blind.  It requires a lot of hard work and discipline on the parts of you
> and the institution that you are attending.  I am sure that if you do pursue
> this as an avenue, that the people on this list can provide as much advice
> and assistance as you can find anywhere in the world.
>
>
>
>
>
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-- 
Peter Q. Wolfe, AS
sunspot005 at gmail.com