When watching science experiments or participating in science labs, I would constantly find myself thinking or saying “what just happened?” after every step of the experiment. Since I have low vision, I often have trouble noticing subtle changes in science experiments or focusing in visually…

Ten staff members you should meet before or at the beginning of college

When I was in middle and high school, many teachers and school staff members encouraged me to develop strong self-advocacy skills so that I could feel comfortable talking about my low vision and what accommodations I would need in the classroom. Talking to a substitute…

When preparing for an IEP meeting, a 504 Plan meeting, or a Disability Services meeting, parents and students will often be asked to come up with sample accommodations that can be used to provide services for students in the classroom. However, it can be very…

A prospective student recently asked me if they really needed to get a Disability Services file for college, because they didn’t want to go through the intake process or go to a bunch of meetings when they would primarily be taking online classes and could…

Since I was in a tech-related major during undergrad, I became the default IT specialist and device troubleshooter for friends, family members, people who lived in my dorm building, and other students who had trouble using their computer or other mobile devices. Practical information technology…

How to use OneNote, a free note taking software that allows users to create multimedia notebooks and use accessible materials

While I have always been interested in studying assistive technology and “other technology”, I changed my undergraduate major three times. I started as an applied computer science major, switched to information technology, and ultimately graduated with a degree in Computational and Data Sciences. Before changing…

How to tell college professors about your disability services file

As a student with low vision, I didn’t realize how many visual details I would miss out on when watching videos for school until I watched a video with audio description for the first time in college. After learning how helpful audio description can be,…

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. Even…

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…