[nabs-l] {Spam?} Re: Transition to college

Thu Jul 14 13:22:11 UTC 2016

Hi Anna and all,

I'll take a stab at this one.

1.  How smooth was your transition from high school to college? (Please explain)
Smooth for the most part.  I found a group of wonderful friends almost
right off the bat, and my classes did not challenge me as much as my
high school courses did.  (Most college students will tell you the
exact opposite, but this was my experience.)  My college did not want
me to use Braille in my classes.  They thought that I could learn
music only by ear, and I went along with them until I suffered in my
musicianship classes.  Funny thing about sight reading: it isn't sight
reading (or touch reading if you will) if you hear it ahead of time.
Eventually, I added a major, made even more friends, and although I
never quite got used to living in a dorm, I was able to find direction
and normalcy as a freshman.

 2. What did/do you struggle with in college? (This could be academic
or social or anything else college related)
I struggle with procrastination, the need to be challenged,
perfectionism, and confidence.  I love school, and I've always been
enthusiastic about learning.  Yes, I am a nerd.  I would get myself
into stressful situations because I procrastinate and then cram or
write at the last minute.  I don't need to study as much as some
might, so I have not developed good study habits.

I learned Braille music behind my classmates.  Whereas my colleagues
began learning to sight read the fall of our freshman year, I had to
pick it up a semester behind them while remaining in the same
rotation.  Eventually, I was able to take a semester off from that one
class and work with a professor individually.  I also spent a lot of
time managing my accommodations.  Music and language majors can be
some of the most difficult to manage as a blind student.  I faught for
Braille music, advocated so that I could have technology that would
allow me to compose music for my classes, managed readers for music
theory, and always struggled to find German books in Braille.  And
then we had conducting, German culture classes involving films, and my
performance classes.  I know the disability services office didn't
treat me this way and didn't consider me to be particularly difficult,
but I did feel like a burden on my undergrad university.

 3. What do you wish you had been told or taught before starting college?

Do your best to know the accommodations you will need, why you need
them, and how you will get them.  You cannot rely on others to do this
for you because they do not know you and they will be wrong.

Learn and use Braille!  Yeah, copy cat here.  And I don't have a
problem falling in line with the NFB's adoration of Braille.  I would
have failed as a music major without Braille.  Reading aloud, giving
confident presentations, and observing spelling and sentence structure
are invaluable skills.  Also, I have always found that taking notes
with a head phone in one ear distracted me completely.  If I really
wanted to take notes and listen to the presentations, then I use my
note taker.  And now you all know my secret...

Do not allow professors to make you feel less because you are blind.
We have a right to be in their classes, and we want to work with them
to create a positive situation for everyone.  I say this because I was
told over and over again that I should seek out acting lessons, should
find someone to work with me on performing techniques, and that my
opera professors didn't have the resources to work with me.  I was
also told that I would always count rhythms badly because of my
blindness.  To this day I still have a counting complex, though now I
truly believe that I am that soprano who makes up her own rhythms.  :)
 The moral of that story?  Believe in your own worth.  Listen to
criticism, but do not believe that your blindness lessens what you can
do.  It's just one characteristic of who we are.

I hope that helps!  Can I just be a college student again?  :)

On 7/13/16, Joe via NABS-L <nabs-l at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 1. How smooth was your transition from high school to college? (Please
> explain)
>
> In some ways, it was too smooth. I came home at the end of that first
> semester with every grade possible. My new found freedom was more than I
> could handle, and the academic probation was a testament to my maturity, or
> lack thereof. I realize this is not blindness-specific, but it's the kind
> of
> thing that can compound a blind student's experience. I spent the rest of
> my
> undergraduate years lifting myself out of the little pit I'd built for
> myself. It's probably for this reason that I am an advocate of taking a gap
> year. Go do a church mission. Attend an NFB center. Get involved in
> AmeriCorps. Do something to adjust your view of life so that you can take
> college more seriously. Or, maybe it's just me.
>
> 2. What did/do you struggle with in college? (This could be academic or
> social or anything else college related)
>
> I had a difficult time with algebra. In high school I had been shown
> various
> ways to use alternative techniques to work with graphs, charts and complex
> equations, but in college it's as if I consumed a big-o glass of stupid.
> LOL
> I mean, it's only funny because at the end of it all I don't know who was
> more excited to see me complete my math requirements, me or the professor I
> habitually took the courses. Ironically, I never had trouble with my
> biology
> courses. I'm going to chalk it up to an ineffective algebra professor, but
> the truth is a lot of it rested on me.
>
> With one exception, my social life was decent. The crazy thing is that the
> one exception was a Hispanic fraternity. I mean, the nerve! Here I thought
> I
> would find a home with my brown brothers, but nope. They actually did more
> to make me feel like an outsider for being blind than anyone else in
> college.
>
> Wait, I'll own up to one other exception. There was this girl I really
> liked. She liked me, or she did until the blindness thing got in the way.
> She let me go on that account, and while I can now look back on it and
> count
> it as one worth losing, as a college freshman that was a hard pill to
> swallow. I'm glad the following February I attended my first Washington
> Seminar. That sounds a little too much like drinking from the NFB Cool-Ade,
> but it really did go a long way in fixing my little slump there.
>
> 3. What do you wish you had been told or taught before starting college?
>
> First, learn to manage your time before you get to college. All too soon
> you
> will be on your own determining what consumes your life, including when and
> if you show up to class. My junior year I was temporarily possessed. That's
> the only logical reason I can think of for taking a philosophy course at
> 8:00 AM. I must have missed a quarter of the classes in that course, and
> the
> only reason I got an A is because I study well under pressure, or so I like
> to tell myself.
>
> Second, learn how to take notes. It's not necessary to jot down every word
> spoken or even to record your class lecture. Nothing helped me learn how to
> take notes more than the year my Braille Note was missing in action. I got
> really good at the slate and stylus, but no matter how fast I became, I
> quickly learned to only take down major highlights.
>
> Third, learn how to read Braille! Again it may sound as though I'm guzzling
> from that NFB happy juice. I promise though it will be a skill you will be
> glad you acquired. Oral presentations, study habits, and proofreading will
> all benefit from your having learned how to make use of Braille. That's not
> something I had to be told or wish I'd been told, but it's something I
> often
> tell the college kids I've mentored.
>
> Next, don't be afraid to socialize. That would seem pretty
> self-explanatory,
> but college is one of the few points in your life when you will be able to
> move in and out of social circles with flexible ease. I mean, don't go to
> the extreme I experienced my first semester in college. Yet do not pass up
> opportunities to turn casual conversations in class to possible long-term
> friendships. The people who were curious as to why in hell I was writing
> backward with a slate and stylus were the ones I sometimes wound up
> throwing
> back a few drinks at a bar off campus. And, no, I am in no way suggesting
> you need a bar to be social, but follow your speed in whatever scenario
> makes you comfortable. Too often I think we make sighted people more of a
> barrier than they need to be. There have been many times when people later
> admitted they had not approached me sooner because I looked ticked off or
> rushed or generally unapproachable. People are curious about you and how
> you
> do things. If you don't educate them, their misconceptions may persist.
>
> Anyway, I hope that's helpful.
>
> Best,
>
> Joe
>
> --
> Musings of a Work in Progress:
> www.JoeOrozco.com/
>
> Twitter: @ScribblingJoe
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: NABS-L [mailto:nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Anna via
> NABS-L
> Sent: Wednesday, July 13, 2016 3:21 PM
> To: nabs-l at nfbnet.org
> Cc: annajee82 at gmail.com
> Subject: [nabs-l] Transition to college
>
> Hey NABS!
>
> I am trying to collect some information and hoping that this may be a
> useful
> place to do so. I need to hear about people's experiences or thoughts on
> the
> process of transition, so here are some questions to help direct this
> discussion:
>
> 1.  How smooth was your transition from high school to college? (Please
> explain)
>
> 2. What did/do you struggle with in college? (This could be academic or
> social or anything else college related)
>
> 3. What do you wish you had been told or taught before starting college?
>
> There are more questions but let's start with that.
>
> I would love to hear about these topics from everyone.  And feel free to
> email me off list if necessary.
>
> Thanks much,
>
> Anna E Givens
> annajee82 at gmail.com
> _______________________________________________
> NABS-L mailing list
> NABS-L at nfbnet.org
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nabs-l_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
> NABS-L:
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nabs-l_nfbnet.org/jsoro620%40gmail.com
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> NABS-L mailing list
> NABS-L at nfbnet.org
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nabs-l_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
> NABS-L:
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nabs-l_nfbnet.org/kaybaycar%40gmail.com
>

-- 
Julie A. McGinnity
President, National Federation of the Blind Performing Arts Division,
Second Vice President, National Federation of the Blind of Missouri
"For we walk by faith, not by sight"
2 Cor. 7