[nabs-l] Good community colleges in the midwest?

[Kaiti Shelton]

Hi,

I tried that first.  The book I need isn't available on bookshare,
NLS, etc, so I need the disability office to put it into alternative
format.  As of now they're the most cooperative part of the community
college; filling out all their paperwork was the hard part, but they
received it today and the woman who called to schedule an intake
appointment, the last step in getting set up, was probably the most
helpful person I've talked to so far.
I mentioned my blindness because I needed to make sure that the tech
support people would be able to make sure all the online stuff is
accessible.  At the university I attend now, if something isn't
accessible we've set it up so that I can email tech support, tell them
what the issue is, and they'll do what they need to to make the site
more Jaws-friendly, upload a text-only version of a PDF to the site so
I can access online readings, alter the code in the web site so that I
can use it, etc.  I wanted to make sure that this college would have
the capability of doing that too since my initial encounters with the
disabilities office and what they could do for tactile imaging weren't
that great.  Since I plan to take community college courses completely
online, I felt like I needed to make sure that things would be
screenreader friendly and that if they weren't the tech support or
disability office people would be able to fix it.
I didn't mention it to the transient student person, and my
conversations with them have been the most frustrating thus far.
Since I seem to have gotten all the accessibility issues taken care
of, that's the one hurdle I have to get over, although considering
I've been working on all this for one class since January and I've
gotten the run around between departments while trying to figure out
the accessibility issues and figure out who my advisor is and who I
even talk to to get my credits transfered, I don't think I'll go back
to this community college in the future.  I plan to just use the
scholarship I have there and then to look into other schools for
future summer courses.


On 4/22/13, Arielle Silverman <arielle71 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Kaiti,
> I don't know about specific schools in the Midwest, but I'm thinking
> you can take social psychology over the summer without signing up for
> disability services or even telling anyone in the transfer office that
> you're blind. Sometimes the simplest solutions are the best ones.
> Email your professor to find out what textbook they're using for the
> class, get it from BookShare or Learning Ally, then meet with your
> professor to work out testing accommodations and that's it, you're
> done and all you have to worry about is getting the credit
> transferred. Unless I'm missing something, why does your disability
> have to be a factor at all when you're trying to get bureaucratic
> stuff done so your credits will transfer? Can you work out your credit
> transfer without saying anything at all about blindness?
> Arielle
>
> On 4/22/13, Kaiti Shelton <crazy4clarinet104 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I'm having a heck of a time getting set up with a community college
>> for summer courses.  I did a tech prep program in high school and
>> received a scholarship for a free three credit hour class at this
>> particular school.  Over the past few weeks I've had a lot of trouble
>> getting set up there with disability services and transient student
>> services.  I managed to skirt around the disability issue (I changed
>> the course I planned to take from human anatomy to social psychology
>> because I was worried the disability people wouldn't be able to
>> produce the tactile diagrams) but the transient student person who is
>> my advisor isn't helping much, and overall I'm finding a lot of the
>> people I talk to to be extremely rude and not helpful... I get the run
>> around a lot... get automatically transfered to the ds office no
>> matter what I'm asking the person on the phone to tell me if I just
>> bring up disability services or that I'm blind... and it's very
>> difficult to get simple information about documents making it through
>> the mail to them and getting to the right person and the like.  They
>> seem to be having a lot of trouble accomodating my multiple attributes
>> which make me a non-traditional student, (something other than
>> learning disabled, attending a 4-year school and not going there as my
>> main school, already enrolled because of the tech prep program but not
>> actually a transcripted student since I haven't taken courses there
>> yet).  It's also ffrustrating for me because the college I'm coming
>> from is much more organized and the people are much more helpful.
>> (They'll set up automatic generated emails to let you know documents
>> were received, are very helpful on the phones, and are pretty much a
>> total contrast to the community college I'm trying to get into.  My
>> university has definitely spoiled me.
>>
>> I fully intend to use this scholarship, even if I never go back to
>> this community college again because there is no sense in letting a
>> free class go to waste.  However, as my original plans for school
>> involved taking courses over each summer I am wondering if anyone goes
>> to or has attended a good community college in the midwest.  I'm in
>> southern Ohio so if anyone has attended another Ohio, Kentucky,
>> Indiana, community colleges and had success with their disability
>> services, transfering credits back to a 4-year school, or both, please
>> let me know.  (I plan to look into the colleges in my city as well,
>> but I'm just trying to get a broader scope of what might be out there
>> because I've gotten some mixed reviews on the community colleges
>> around me from sighted students and have no idea what their disability
>> services are like yet.  I've also heard from sighted students that
>> this particular school is awesome and as a disabled student I'm
>> finding that to not really be the case for me, so I'm also hesitant to
>> take the word of sighted students who don't necessarily have to be as
>> in depth in setting up logistics for their schooling.
>>
>> Any feedback would be awesome.
>>
>> --
>> Kaiti
>>
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-- 
Kaiti