[nabs-l] A blind Fulbright grantee's question

[Liz Bottner]

Hi Adriana,

My name is Liz Bottner. I am currently studying for a Masters degree in
rehabilitation teaching for blind adults and assistive technology at
Northern Illinois University. I will agree with what others have said on
list, that your choice of university should be related to what school will
work best for you and not which school would be the best option for a blind
student. Challenges and accessibility barriers can be worked around with the
right attitude and cooperation. While I have no experience of academic
programs outside the Visual Disabilities department here, I am enjoying my
experience. A lot of my accommodations are handled by my graduate department
and so I don't necessary have too much experience with the office for
students with disabilities. I have heard good and bad things about this
office. The experiences that I have had with them have been good, though. I
will reiterate what I said above in that any roadblocks can be surmounted
with the right attitude and cooperation. If you already have skills in areas
such as OCR/scanning materials and if need be and in self-advocacy, that's a
fantastic start!

As far as transportation, getting anywhere in and around DeKalb is very
doable with help from the campus transportation services that is provided to
NIU students with disabilities. With this service, you can easily go to
grocery stores, (Wal-Mart, Target, etc), restaurants, although there are a
lot of restaurants that you do not need transport to as they are in walking
distance, (depending on where you are living - would you be living in the
dorms or off campus? I myself live off campus in a townhouse with friends),
and other such places needed for errands and the like. To get outside of
DeKalb is a little more tricky in that you need to take a cab from DeKalb to
the next town over to get to the train station. That can be a bit expensive
if you need to do that a lot, but I have found that riding with friends or
other people you can split the cost so that it isn't the worst thing ever.
TO be honest, grad school keeps me so busy that I usually don't have time to
leave DeKalb even if I wanted to! Ha ha!

Take care, hopefully that has answered some of your questions, and if I can
be of further assistance to you, please free to contact me off list. My
e-mail address is in my signature.

Liz Bottner
Guiding Eyes Graduate Council
GEB Voicemail:  800-942-0149 Ext. 2531
e-mail: 
liziswhatis at hotmail.com 
Visit my LiveJournal: 
http://unsilenceddream.livejournal.com 
Follow me on Twitter: 
http://twitter.com/lizbot 


-----Original Message-----
From: nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf
Of ADRIANA PULIDO
Sent: Monday, May 09, 2011 5:01 PM
To: nabs-l at nfbnet.org
Subject: [nabs-l] A blind Fulbright grantee's question

    Hello!

My name is Adriana Pulido. I'm a blind Fulbright grantee from
Colombia, and I'm going to study a Master's degree in communications
and Journalism.
At this moment, a placement officer at LASPAU is working on my
admission process. I have 5 university options, namely: the University
of Florida, the University of South Florida, Temple University,
Northern Illinois University, and the University of Arkansas, which
was suggested by my Placement officer.

Could you please tell me which of these universities is the best
option for a blind student?
I also would like to know which is the best option academically speaking.

                                        Thank you for attending this
message.


Best,



-- 
Adriana Pulido
Filóloga y músico de la Universidad
Nacional de Colombia. Becaria Fulbright.

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