College

Whenever I speak about my experiences with working with a teacher of the visually impaired (TVI) while attending public school, people are often surprised by how many lessons my TVI taught me in high school, even though I did not see them very often. They…

Balancing security and accessibility, an IT major’s guide to improving your passwords

During my senior year of high school, I went from having a few virtual classes each year to a truly hybrid online class schedule, where 50% or more of my classes were online. This continued throughout undergrad in college, before I transitioned to having all…

When I switched to taking 100% online classes, I thought that the transition would be pretty easy because I had already had a hybrid schedule with a mix of in-person and online classes since I was in high school. What I hadn’t considered was that…

As a student with low vision and an unpredictable chronic illness, I spend a lot of time learning asynchronously outside of the classroom. Even when I do attend classes in-person, I often search for study resources online to explore topics in-depth or get explanations about…

Between high school, undergraduate, and graduate school, I have taken over 50 virtual/hybrid/online classes and counting on a variety of subjects, including core subjects, required classes for my major, and even electives. One of my strategies for determining if an online class will be a…

When my brother was planning his schedule for his first semester, one of the questions he asked me was how to choose general education courses in college that would satisfy his major requirements while letting him explore his interests. When I was taking my general…

When I had to re-register for several classes and change my schedule during my fourth semester of college, I thought it would be a good idea to set up an alarm on my phone that would go off every 15 minutes, 24 hours a day,…

When I came back to my dorm after winter break, I had mentioned to my family how excited I was to see people on campus again and that I was looking forward to getting to know my new professors. What I didn’t realize was that…

How to explain your disability accommodations and ensure they are followed in extracurricular settings

Even though I have trouble seeing information in all of my classes (and outside of my classes for that matter), my disability accommodations for math look different than the accommodations for my other classes. One of the main reasons is because math is a more…

When I lived in tech internship housing for the summer, I had a small “celebration” with friends when I realized that I had avoided locking myself out of my room for the entire summer. This was particularly impressive because I had struggled with locking myself…