[nabs-l] A Question for the College Students

Wed Nov 19 06:20:57 UTC 2014

Evening, Kaiti,

         I think, with being a blind woman in 
particular, getting "taken" , is a sort of right 
of passage through which you must  traverse 
when  you're young, an idealistic. I don't think 
anyone can warn you against a particular reality. 
You need the tangibility of direct, personal 
experience. so you have to be memorably "taken" 
at least once, to figure out exactly whereabouts 
you are positioned  in the world, tangibly, 
irrefutably and above all, memorably.
Thank you for sharing!
CarPM 11/18/2014, Kaiti Shelton via nabs-l wrote:
>Hi, Chris,
>
>I would say that one thing I definitely wish that I had a better
>handle on before going to college was cooking.  It didn't matter so
>much my freshman year when I had a meal plan and only a microwave in
>my dorm, but once I got a kitchen my sophomore year, I was pretty
>dependent on my sighted roommates for most dinners beyond a sandwitch,
>soup, etc until I learned how to use a stove.  I'm thankful that I can
>cook now, but I wish that I didn't have to learn through trial and
>error on my own as much as I did.
>
>Also, I wish that I would have been more prepared for the culture
>shock of being the one blind person, who people could easily take
>advantage of.  I don't know if this is something I could have
>necessarily prepared for, or that you could even prepare for, but it
>was difficult for me to adjust to that.  Most people were very nice
>and treated me normally, offered help but were still okay when I
>politely declined, invited me to go places, etc.  I had a really
>awkward and bad roommate situation my first semester which resulted
>from my roommate thinking she could get away with anything because I
>wouldn't see it.  I wasn't sheltered by my family or anything, but I
>was fortunate enough to never have to deal with bullying beyond what
>my sighted classmates got from time to time as a kid, and no one had
>really tried to take advantage of me like that before.  I'm not trying
>to scare you, and like I said 99.999% of people were really cool and
>nice to me, but it was just something I was more naïve about than I
>wish I had been.
>
>I agree with Justin.  I was lucky enough to be set on my career from
>sophomore year of high school on, but career explanation at the least
>confirmed this for me, while letting me see if I'd like other fields.
>I'd recommend doing what you can to settle on a major that you'll
>stick with through undergrad; don't be ashamed of switching if that
>situation comes, but depending on what you want to switch from and
>what you want to switch to, it may or may not add some time on to your
>schooling if it happens.  You also don't necessarily want to be the
>kid that switches a bunch, not just for the money and time but also
>for your own sanity.  I have a friend who started as music ed,
>switched to early childhood ed because she thought she didn't like
>teaching music after the first year, only stayed in that degree for a
>semester because she decided teaching itself was what she didn't
>really like, and is now finally settled on pre-med.  She loves her
>major now, but she's added an extra year onto her program because it
>took her so long to find what she wanted to do, and was really
>stressed about her career choices until she got to this point.
>College is stressful enough at times when you do feel like you're in
>the right program.
>
>Hope this helps.
>
>On 11/18/14, justin williams via nabs-l <nabs-l at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> > Career exploration. Make sure you do that.   Wish I would have had
> > guidance.
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: nabs-l [mailto:nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Chris Nusbaum
> > via nabs-l
> > Sent: Tuesday, November 18, 2014 7:22 PM
> > To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list
> > Subject: [nabs-l] A Question for the College Students
> >
> > Hey Fellow NABSters,
> >
> > As many of you know, I am currently a junior in high school who is
> > beginning
> > my college search and the long journey of preparation for this transition.
> > I
> > have an IEP meeting coming up and I'm trying to come up with appropriate
> > goals for me in the coming year. At this time in my life, I would like some
> > input from those of you who are currently in college. If there is one key
> > skill which you wish you would have learned in high school and needed for
> > college, what would it be? I'm trying to be as proactive as possible in
> > preparing for college and setting the goals which will best help me do so,
> > and the experiences of current college students would be a great help to
> > me.
> > Thank you in advance for your advice and perspective. I look forward to
> > hearing from you soon.
> >
> > Chris Nusbaum, Vice President
> > Maryland Association of Blind Students
> > Coordinator of Social Media, National Federation of the Blind of Maryland
> > Twitter: @Chrisn98, @MDMDABS, and @NFBMD
> >
> > "The National Federation of the Blind knows that blindness is not the
> > characteristic that defines you or your future. Every day we raise the
> > expectations of blind people,  because low expectations create obstacles
> > between blind people and our dreams. You can live the life you want;
> > blindness need not hold you back." -National Federation of the Blind One
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>
>
>--
>Kaiti
>
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