College

Six ways Amazon Alexa can help with homework, great for auditory learners and blind/visually impaired students

If you or a loved one has just been diagnosed with low vision or blindness, here’s why you need a case with your state vision impairment department

My biggest IEP goal, learning to self advocate, and how it has helped me more than I ever imagined

Shortly before the day of my high school graduation, my mom received a phone call from the state department for visual impairment services asking if I was graduating from high school and if I was interested in their services for vocational rehabilitation for college students.…

On July 7th, I had the opportunity to attend a virtual event with the West Virginia affiliate for the Association for Education and Rehabilitation for the Blind and Visually Impaired (also known as AERBVI or simply as AER). During the event, I shared some of…

Last year, one of my best friends, who I will call Jane, experienced a great deal of academic ableism from a professor in their major. While I wasn’t there to witness what happened in the classroom, I watched Jane suffer from a mental and emotional…

One of the things that I love about my college is that there are hundreds of classes available for students to take that cover a wide variety of topics and areas of interest. While there are certain classes that a student may need to take…

Over the weekend, one of my friends sent me a video recorded by an active bystander for academic ableism who was showing a situation where a student with hearing loss was being berated by the professor for their disability. I don’t want to share the…

In 2019, my time living on campus came to a very sudden and unexpected close after I was diagnosed with a medical condition that made it impossible for me to continue living on my own. While this medical condition is now much better controlled and…

My tips for being successful in college admission interviews

I recently came across a conversation thread on social media talking about how difficult it can be to keep a dorm room clean with chronic illness and how having a messy dorm can be frustrating not only for visitors, but for the person living in…

The first time someone asked me if there was anything they could do to make my workspace more accessible for my chronic illness/brain condition, I wasn’t sure what to say, as I had never considered how it could influence how I configure my desk or…

I receive disability accommodations in college for two different medical conditions- an eye condition that causes low vision and a neurological condition called Chiari Malformation. Both my eye and brain condition cause me to experience light sensitivity, sometimes referred to as photosensitivity, and my accommodations…

This semester, I noticed a new tool within my online classes called Blackboard Ally that could transform the way that I access materials as a student with low vision that fluctuates frequently. I’ve been using Blackboard Ally for about a week and a half now,…

Recently, I received a message from a Teacher of the Visually Impaired asking about the most common tech skills for virtual classes that I use in college, as they were helping to prepare their students for taking online and hybrid classes in college by giving…