[BlindMath] Advice for blind biomedical engineering student

[Steve Jacobson]

Lucas,

As you may have seen, your note went to the whole list, but that is all right.  As you may know, I am from Minnesota and it is Minus five degrees F, around minus twenty C, here this morning, so I hope it is warmer where you are.  

Believe me, what you are facing is not unusual, although knowing that doesn't make it easier.  There are a number of people here that can provide you with some advice.  We won't have all of the answers, and different approaches work for different people.  Understanding what capabilities your disabled students office can do is important.  If you currently have an open case with a rehabilitation agency, you may need to get an authorization to pay someone to fill in the gaps.  We used to refer to such people as "readers" but there are other tasks such a person can perform.  I might be of help off list if you are working with State Services for the Blind here in Minnesota.  You are going to find, if you haven't already, that it sometimes makes more sense to have somebody read some materials to you rather than spending the time to make it accessible, especially if the material is short.  Please understand, I am not saying this is necessarily right in a legal sense, but I'm speaking in a practical sense.

Good luck to you there, and I am sure you will get other suggestions.

Best regards,

Steve Jacobson

-----Original Message-----
From: BlindMath <blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Lucas Nadolskis via BlindMath
Sent: Friday, January 21, 2022 7:45 AM
To: Jonathan Godfrey via BlindMath <blindmath at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Lucas Nadolskis <nadol012 at umn.edu>
Subject: [BlindMath] Advice for blind biomedical engineering student

Hello Jonathan.
Hope this email finds you well.

My name is Lucas Nadolskis.
I am currently a masters student in biomedical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University.

I have followed some of your emails in BlindMath, and I hope it is okay to send you this private email.

I have studied disciplines related with statistics throughout my life, I got my BS in Computer Science from the University of Minnesota. And I have always faced the general challenges that a totally blind student has on such classes with professors that had never seen a blind student before.

However, since I started my masters I am having difficulties I din't have previously. Due to the size of CMU their office for disability is much smaller meaning I am doing much of the adaptations myself.

Those challenges include:
Conversion of papers heavily related on math content.
Accessing the slides from classes.
Reading textbooks.
Reading extra papers to facilitate understanding of the subject.

I wonder if you would be able to give me any kind of advice on any of these topics?

Thank you vey much.

Kind regards.

Lucas Nadolskis.


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