[nabs-l] Consultation regarding an Academic Mission Needed

[Hamid Hamraz]

> 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?

I'll be starting a doctrate program in CS at the University of Kentucky 
(Anyone close to me?). My VI is a cortical impairmet out of an incident a 
few years ago in Germany while I was doing my Master study. I had to leave 
the school and the country after some initial medical cares because of 
serious health impairments, and the subsequent psychological problems. I 
managed to gradually reconstruct my physical capabilities by phisio-therapy 
and occupational therapy in the following years. As I've been advised by the 
doctors, my sight will be improving although it's over 4 years by now, and I 
think it'll take more. I think it is getting better although measuring that 
is almost impossible (mostly central vision malfunctioning). However, this 
thought, i.e. the improvement sensation of myself might be due to increasing 
my non-visual skills and the subsequent self-confidence. I really don't know 
this.

I am from Iran holding a Bachelor's degree from my country, and planning to 
be in US in Aug 8th. (The visa is ready; I just need to have somebody pick 
it up from our neighbor country, Turkmanistan.)

Ashley:
Thank you very much for the info you provided below. I'll consider it while 
I am staying in touch with the list.

>  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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