[nabs-l] Consultation regarding an Academic Mission Needed

[Ashley Bramlett]

Hamid,
I'll start by saying  that I graduated from Marymount university, a private
liberal arts school, a few years ago. I combined studies for a degree as  I
did not feel I could handle a full degree in psychology. At the time the
stats software, SPSS, was not accessible and I would have faced other
barriers. My degree was in liberal studies with focus in communication and
psychology.
School is challenging at the post secondary level because you do not have
access to braille. In public school my Teacher of the vision impaired, TVI,
obtained my books in accessible format either audio, braille or large print
or a combo of those as well as brailled any handouts the class received.
Therefore when my sighted classmates got a worksheet, so did I and I did not
have to wait for alternative forms of texts as I did in college. I did
despite requesting electronic formats way in advance of my classes!
I'm also not too active in NFB so my opinion may differ from others. I know
we want to present a positive image, but IMO we may have to take it slowly
at the beginning while adjusting to a new school, new major, and new ways of
doing things.

Anyway, that said, I wish you success in your
computer science studies. You might want to do two classes your first 
semester. Where will you be studying? What country do you
come
from and were you educated there in a mainstream class or school for the
blind? Do you mind sharing what your vision impairment is? Its obvious your
vision loss is new and I'm guessing probably a gradual loss. Maybe you have
RP, retinitinis pigmentosa. I'm visually impaired too, so I  know the
benefits of seeing things where spatial relationships are involved. However,
I also was taught braille and use that as my primary medium and print my
secondary one for reading.
I think by seeing something like say geometry figures or a diagram of the
heart, I can better picture it than if I learned it just by a description.
So, for some of us vision impaired people, using it is effective and we do
not have to use all nonvisual ways. Because you cannot read braille
effectively, I think using your vision may help a lot provided you can see
large print well without fatigue.
BTW, you might be able to use jumbo braille a little bit even though you
have hand trimmers.

I do not know computer science or math majors so my advice may be more
general and I'm imagining what might be useful to you
in this program of study based on the little I know of CS.

You are right that getting special equipment will help your studies a lot.
I use adaptive equipment all the time. For instance, I love my braille note,
a portable PDA from humanware. In the US, we have a service that records
books on CD and digital form. It
is Learning Ally www.learningally.org.
I do not know if they provide service to study abroad students, but you
might check on that. Learning ally may have your textbooks in their library.
If you choose to use them, you might want to buy a VR Stream and you can use
an sd card to play their books. You could also buy a vr stratus which plays
daisy cds. Both are available from humanware.

These are some other ideas here. I know you will need a way to draw things
in your CS studies. They use a lot of flow charts and also if you study
computer programming that has a lot of visual stuff too.
You already know about freedom scientific because you use jaws and openbook.
If you tell us how you plan to read your books and take notes I might have
more suggestions.

Let me know if you need or want to know where to purchase these. The first
four items are available from APH, American printing house for the blind.
Click on products and then low vision reading and writing to find these.

1. bold line paper or bold line notebook; these lines are easier to see than
standard loose leaf paper.
2. writing guides; these are templates which you slide a paper into and
write between the boxes of the template; good for writing straight if you do
not have lined paper.
3. large print ruler
4. bold lined graph paper; might help as you draw concepts or if you take 
math classes
5. a CCTV, it’s a magnifier that you put a paper or book underneath it and 
it magnifies print on the screen
6. a digital recorder

Other tools for writing or drawing diagrams you can get at general stores. 
You could use Mr. Sketch markers some. They are multi clored and good for 
drawing contrasting lines. You might also use graphic art tape, which is in 
red and black, so you could see and touch the lines if you used both colors.
Crayola also makes some thick markers you might also be able to see well and 
find useful.

Good luck.

Ashley


-----Original Message----- 
From: Hamid Hamraz
Sent: Saturday, June 02, 2012 5:54 AM
To: Blind Math ; National Association of Blind Students mailing list
Subject: [nabs-l] Consultation regarding an Academic Mission Needed

Dear all,

I am going to start a computer science graduate program in US in the
upcoming fall. However, this is my first academic mission after I got
visually impaired. The standard load for a semester would be 3 graduate
courses. On the other hand, as you know, we blinds and VI folks are
remarkably slower in CS-related assignments like math, programming, etc.

Now, I greatly appreciate it if experienced people in the list offer me
suggestions regarding the course load, etc. Besides, I should order
VI-related equipment for my workplace well in advance. So far I've thought
about these:

1. A large LCD (+25 inch)
2. Headphone
3. Scanner
4. Printer
5. Whiteboard (on which I can read single letters and digits or very large
figures/diagrams)
6. Software (JAWS and Open Book to which I am very well accustomed)
7. An ergonomic keyboard with many extra function keys

Please note that I can not read Braille effectively (mostly because of some
very little tremor in my hands and fingers).

If anybody has some other things to add to the list, I'd be glad to hear.

Look forward to hearing back both your academic and non-academic advices.

Many thanks,

Hamid
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