College Knowledge by Learning Ally

College Success Program Team
  • 5.0 (4)
  • EDUCATION

Being a college student with a visual impairment can be challenging but connecting to the College Success Program can help you make the most of this experience and succeed in reaching your goals. Join our mentors and cohosts, Bryan Duarte, Rachel Grider and Rashad Jones as they explore the academic, the professional, and the personal aspects of College Knowledge.

Episodes

  1. 07/22/2020

    College Knowledge Podcast - Episode 4: Advocacy

    College Knowledge Podcast - Episode 4: Advocacy Being a college student with a visual impairment can be challenging but connecting to the College Success Program can help you make the most of this experience and succeed in reaching your goals. Join our mentors and cohosts, Bryan Duarte, Rachel Grider and Rashad Jones as they explore the academic, the professional, and the personal aspects of College Knowledge. If you are a college student who is blind or who has low vision, or you are curious about the world of college and visual impairment, this show is for you! Episode 4: Advocacy Many people know that if you are blind or have low vision, you need to advocate in the classroom and around campus. But advocacy is part of our daily lives, and you never know when you'll get the opportunity to use or sharpen this skill. Join Rachel, Rashad and Bryan as they dive into advocacy for all kinds of situations. You can also find this episode, and previous episodes, on iTunes by searching College Knowledge or by clicking here. Be sure to leave us a rating or review! Learn more about the College Success Program and sign up at learningally.org/CollegeSuccess.   Episode 4: Advocacy Transcript Rachel Grider: Welcome to “College Knowledge,” Learning Ally’s podcast for college students who are blind or visually impaired. This show brings together the three core elements of Learning Ally‘s college success programs: mentors, resources and community. I am your co-host Rachel Grider, blind (?) mentor, music teacher, performer and lifelong advocate. And speaking of advocacy, that’s exactly what we’re going to be talking about today.  Last year, based on the feedback for mentors, the college success program added a course to the curriculum called, “Living on your own.” I was really excited to write some resources for this course. For instance, I wrote a resource about shopping on your own, but I also wanted to write a resource about advocacy. I wanted to show that when it comes to advocacy, we’ve all been there. We’ve all most likely gotten it wrong a few times. Well, we’re all human, and we also want to make advocacy easier for people. I also wanted to show that advocacy happens all the time. You usually don’t get a break from it. It can happen in your classes, in job interviews, with friends and family, in restaurants and in recreational activities. So unfortunately, or fortunately, you always need to be prepared.  Here to join me in our advocacy chat are my co-hosts Rashad Jones and Bryan Duarte. To get us started, Bryan is going to discuss advocacy in a professional and educational setting, as well as appropriate and effective strategies for both situations.  Bryan Duarte: Thank you, Rachel, for that great introduction. And yes, advocacy is something that is very, very important to me, and I’m a big advocate of self-advocacy. I believe that in a lot of situations there are right ways and wrong ways to advocate, and you’re not always just advocating for yourself. In a lot of ways, especially in the social aspect of things, you are really under a microscope. So the way that you interact with people in a professional or educational setting really could have repercussions on other individuals who are blind or low vision. If you have a good interaction, it could reflect good on the next person they interact with, so it’s very important that when you are advocating to not just stomp your feet and storm out or start banging things.  So let’s look at this from a scenario kind of perspective. When I was an undergraduate, I had a really rough time. I think I’ve talked about this before where I had a rough time. My first semester was almost my last semester because of the time that I had, and I expected things to be in place and things really were not in place to the standard that I thought they should have been. And I had a couple meetings and things did not go well, and I had a decision to make then. I was meeting with the Dean, I was meeting with the director of the Disability Center, as well as my disability advisor, and I think my professor. One of my professors was included in this meeting, and I had to really think about it. How I present myself and my problem and my issues in this meeting could really help me or they could hinder me, so I really thought long and hard about it. I took time. I wrote down the points I wanted to make--the things that I thought that I needed or wanted and wasn’t being given, and I directed my energy into that so that when it came time to be in this meeting with these very, very important people so that I didn’t make a fool of myself first of all, but also that I was getting things in place for myself and those to follow behind me.  So during the meeting I directed most of my attention to my Disabilities Advisor. Most of my conversation was almost directly to her at the time because I wanted to let them know that I respected her as my “first in command,” so to speak. I didn’t try to go over her head by directing it directly to the Dean or directly to her supervisor, the Disabilities Advising Supervisor. I went straight to her and to my professor because I wanted them both to know that I respected their authority and their position.  The next thing I did really was I outlined, like I said, I outlined the things that I felt like I needed to be successful in the course, as well as the things that I didn’t feel like I was getting or weren’t adequate for me as a blind student, so that was very important. And I want to emphasize the fact that going into a meeting like this with a game plan is probably the most important thing that you can do for yourself. Because it’s very easy when you have what feels like your back is against the wall --I was on one side of the table; all five of them were on the other side of the table. You can really feel like everybody is against you, but if you go in prepared, it really reshapes your mindset in something like this. It tries to help you from being put into a corner and having nothing to stand on, and then what happens? Your emotions come out, and then you start yelling or crying or demanding, and that’s not really effective or appropriate in this situation.  Finally, to conclude the meeting (I had this in my notes by the way), was to lay out next steps. Who was going to do what? How was it going to be done? Was the professor going to be responsible for getting me accessible content, or was the Disability Center going to be responsible? Was more money needed? Now this gets directed to the Dean and to the Disabilities Advising Supervisor.  Was there more resources that were needed? Was it something that we needed to brainstorm together? All these things were strategies that now we came together amongst the people at the table. We came together to outline the next steps and the strategies that we were going to use. At the end of the meeting, things went well. We had a plan in place. We were holding each other accountable. They were checking in with me, and the next three years, four years, I guess, were history. I was able to not only be successful in that class but the classes to come; and I developed great working relationships, and I helped others. I think that the important thing to take away from this is to make sure that you plan ahead. Don’t let your emotions get in the way, and really make sure that when you are talking to them, you’re not just advocating for yourself. You really are advocating for yourself, but you’re maybe teaching those. Maybe you’re the first person who is blind that they are interacting with, but there definitely will be more to follow behind you, and you want to make sure that you don’t leave a bitter taste in their mouth because interacting with you was not pleasant.  So that concludes my piece on interacting in a professional and educational setting, but what we are going to do now is put Rachel back on, and she is going to go over advocacy in a public setting. So, Rachel?  Rachel Grider: All right. Thank you, Bryan. Great, great examples there. So there are so many times when we have to go out into the community to do various things, whether we're going out to eat at a restaurant or just walking down the street. Or if we’re volunteering our services in some capacity; Going to a store. Going shopping. Going to the movies. Going anywhere, really. And you may not think of it this way but advocacy, you have to advocate for yourself, even in settings like that. So, for example, I’ll give you an example of a time. This has happened to me a couple times. I was walking down the street one time, just minding my own business on a busy city street and I was about to cross. And someone came up behind me and grabbed my arm and said, “I will help you cross the street.” And there was no introduction or anything, just this random person. And so I could have chosen various ways to react to this intrusion. I could have pulled away and said, “No,” and been very rude about it.  I could have elbowed him in the ribs and said, “Get away from me.” Or I could have said politely but firmly, “No, thank you. I know  how to cross the street independently, but thank you for your help.” I also could have just accepted his help and meekly gone along with him. So I chose to do the third option. Politely, but firmly, I said, “Thank you for your help but I can cross the street independently.” He asked me how I was able to do that, and I told him how I could cross the street by listening to my parallel traffic. It was a really nice, actually a really good conversation because I was able to educate this person on how a blind person can cross the street.  And I think it's very important, just as Bryan said, that in order to really have a good impression on people because we are representing the blind community by the way we react to these type

  2. 07/09/2020

    College Knowledge Podcast - Episode 3: Relationships

    College Knowledge Podcast - Episode 3: Relationships Being a college student with a visual impairment can be challenging but connecting to the College Success Program can help you make the most of this experience and succeed in reaching your goals. Join our mentors and cohosts, Bryan Duarte, Rachel Grider and Rashad Jones as they explore the academic, the professional, and the personal aspects of College Knowledge. If you are a college student who is blind or who has low vision, or you are curious about the world of college and visual impairment, this show is for you! Episode 3: Relationships In the episode, our hosts interview Caitlin Mongillo, blind mentor and social worker, and discuss everything about relationships: the professional, the platonic, and the personal. Learn some important guidelines about networking, making friends and connecting with potential romantic partners. You can also find this episode, and previous episodes, on iTunes by searching College Knowledge or by clicking here. Be sure to leave us a rating or review! Learn more about the College Success Program and sign up at learningally.org/CollegeSuccess.   Episode 3: Relationships Transcript   Rashad Jones: Hello everybody, welcome to College Knowledge, Learning Ally’s podcast for college students who are blind or visually impaired. This podcast brings together sort of the three elements of Learning Ally, and that’s mentors, resources, and community. I’m your co-host, Rashad Jones. Blind mentor, independent living coach, and lifelong learner. Starting or maintaining relationships can seem easy for everyone else, but when you’re blind or visually impaired, you know, what do you do when you can’t recognize someone’s face? How do you greet a professional you don’t know? And how do you deal with dating and desire? Today we’ll be discussing these topics and many more, all related to developing and maintaining and navigating those professional, personal, and intimate relationships. I’ll be talking with my co-host, Bryan Duarte. How are you doing, Bryan? Bryan Duarte: Very well, thank you. Rashad Jones: Great. And we are so delighted to have the guest speaker for today, who is Caitlin Mongillo. Now, she’s a blind mentor in our program. She’s also a social worker who works with some of the most vulnerable people in our population, helping them to maintain their independence and really helping them find employment and just really be confident about who they are, really excelling in their lives. So, Caitlin, thank you so much for joining us. How are you this evening? Caitlin Mongillo: I’m great, thanks for having me. Rashad Jones: No problem, no problem, no problem. Bryan Duarte: Awesome. Thank you Caitlin, thank you Rashad for that awesome introduction. As Rashad talked today, mentioned in the introduction, we will be discussing three major topics of relationships, and the first one is professional, personal, and romantic or intimate relationships. The first one we’re going to start with today is going to be professional relationships and really what does this look like, and how do we navigate that, when some of the things that society does or social society says that we should do, to get along. So, without further ado, let’s jump into it. So, the first thing we’re going to kind of discuss is, what is it like when we introduce ourselves to someone, and they want to throw out a handshake? Where do we kind of start with that? I’m blind, maybe I don’t see them putting their hand out, is there any ways that we can give some tips on how to do this, or when to do it, or when not to do this? Caitlin Mongillo: So I always sort of, I’m totally blind, I have light perception only so I can’t see, you know, if someone’s reaching out their hand to shake, and I know when I started my job, my current position about 6.5 years ago, this was really challenging for me because a lot of times in, you know, college and graduate school and these kinds of things, you’re not really having to shake professor’s hands or fellow students’ hands, so I sort of always recommend to people and something that I do for myself is if I’m being introduced to someone, I say, you know, “Hi my name is Caitlin Mongillo,” and I’ll actually extend my hand in the general direction that I think they’re facing, that I think their voice is coming from, so this way, you know, I’m putting it out there first and it’s on them to kind of pick up my hand and shake, and I sort of do that as general practice. If someone says to me, “Oh, you know, I don’t shake hands,” or something, I say, “Oh okay no problem,” and I just put my hand down. But this way I’m sort of jumping the gun and trying to get there ahead of them. You know if they have their hand out already and I don’t see it doesn’t matter, because they pretty quickly, maybe there’s a second of awkwardness, but they’ll pretty quickly, you know, take my hand if I’m extending it to them. Because it is somewhat awkward, sometimes you can’t really tell how close you are to someone, so I definitely over-extend my hand and there’s always that slightly awkward moment where maybe you, you know, accidentally touch someone on the stomach or you know in a weird sort of way and you just kind of, I don’t really have an easy answer for that one, unfortunately.  Bryan Duarte: Awesome. Well you bring up two good points that I would like to touch on and the first one I’m gonna throw at my partner here, Rashad. So, the dynamic of male and female, right? We have this kind of thing where it’s common that men shake hands, right? So is that something that women do as well, Caitlin? Caitlin Mongillo: Yes, generally—it’s a great question—if you’re meeting, if I’m meeting someone in a business setting, whether they be male, female, I will always offer to shake hands. The relationships differ and if it’s a coworker, you know, from a different company but someone you know in the field that you’ve met before, maybe then you don’t shake hands and you’ll do like a hug, or you know, you’ve seen coworkers—women coworkers—I’ll, you know, kiss you on the cheek or something like that. But generally, the first time, I always think, for me at least, rule of thumb is to offer the hand, no matter who the other person is. Bryan Duarte: I agree. I think that it’s very important that you kind of follow social norms when in a professional setting; you stand up straight—if you will, you make eye contact, right? This is something that society says we’re supposed to do in a professional setting—you’re supposed to make eye contact, but how do you do that as a blind person? Is that something that you all do in your normal, day-to-day professional networking situations? Caitlin? Caitlin Mongillo: Generally, the way I kind of get around that is I’m very cognizant to look in someone’s direction. So even if my gaze is slightly off to the right, off to the left, you know, I sort of try to hone in on where their voice is coming from, and make sure that I’m at least facing their direction. Of course, I can’t, unfortunately, meet their eyes—but the same thing in a presentation, if you’re at a conference or something, and it’s important to, you know, kind of look in the general direction of the speaker, and you know, some of us will go to these conferences where you’re sitting at small roundtables, in a large ballroom or something, so you can’t actually tell which way the front of the room is, or where the speaker’s coming from. So I’ll sometimes ask someone, “Oh, hey, you know, is the front of the room off to the right, off to the left,” so at least I look like I’m putting in the effort of trying to be attentive you know, to the speaker, even if it’s a room of 100 people, because it’s good courtesy to them but also I think it’s less socially isolating to the people around you who can see, if your back is, you know, totally to the action, it looks a little awkward.  Bryan Duarte: Absolutely, and that brings up a good point.  Rashad Jones: Is it just me, or if you’re like, at a, in a room where maybe the tables or the chairs aren’t facing where the speaker is, do you guys turn in your chair so that you can kind of face that way, or do you turn the whole chair—am I the only one who kind of turns half way and does all these weird body things? Is that just me or, what do y’all do? Does anyone want to talk about it at all? Bryan Duarte: Well I’ll tell you right now, I don’t like when my neck gets a crink in it from having my neck turned to the right because my chair is facing to the left, so I’m probably with you brother, I’ll turn my whole chair, turn my whole body, and kick back because it’s going to be a long one. I definitely don’t want my neck getting stiff because I’m looking to the right. Rashad Jones: [Laughing] Caitlin Mongillo: [Laughing] Rashad Jones: Yeah, so sometimes those seating arrangements can be a little awkward, so that’s just really what I was talking about, so— Bryan Duarte: Okay, well I do all kinds of stuff so—  Rashad Jones: Awesome, awesome. Bryan Duarte: So the other kind of social norm that I think it’s important—blind or not—that we kind of keep in mind is we have the whole standing up, we have the whole making eye contact, if you will, or at least looking in the general direction of the person who’s speaking, or the person you’re interacting with. I think that’s really the key here, is that we’re not kind of extending an ear to them, we’re giving them our attention. I think that’s just a matter of respect. Would you both agree with that, that we’re just kind of respecting the person that we’re speaking with enough to give them our attention by pointing our body at them, letting our physical body language kind

  3. 06/24/2020

    College Knowledge Podcast - Episode 2: Mentorship: How Not to Reinvent the Wheel

    College Knowledge Podcast - Episode 2: Mentorship: How Not to Reinvent the Wheel Being a college student with a visual impairment can be challenging but connecting to the College Success Program can help you make the most of this experience and succeed in reaching your goals. Join our mentors and cohosts, Bryan Duarte, Rachel Grider and Rashad Jones as they explore the academic, the professional, and the personal aspects of College Knowledge. If you are a college student who is blind or who has low vision, or you are curious about the world of college and visual impairment, this show is for you! Episode 2: Mentorship: How Not to Reinvent the Wheel In this episode, our hosts interview Abigail Shaw, Learning Ally's College Success Program Mentorship Coordinator. Learn about why she considers her role to be that of a platonic matchmaker and hear from College Success Program mentors and students about what mentorship through the program means to them. You can also find it on iTunes by searching College Knowledge or click here. Be sure to leave us a rating or review! Learn more about the College Success Program and sign up at learningally.org/CollegeSuccess.   Episode 2: Mentorship: How Not to Reinvent the Wheel Transcript Bryan Duarte: Welcome to College Knowledge, Learning Ally’s podcast for college students who are blind or low vision. This show brings together three core elements of Learning Ally’s College Success program – Mentoring, Resources and Community. I am your cohost Bryan Duarte, blind mentor, software engineer and universal designer. When you think about a mentor, what comes to mind? Is it someone who helped you through a tough time? Or maybe it was someone that helped you find the career path you were going to pursue. Maybe this person helped you become a better blind person or maybe just a better human in general. A mentor can be all these things and much more. Our Learning Ally CSP mentors have all undergone several interviews as well as a background check. We work with our students to set goals and we even celebrate with them when they achieve those goals. But, we are also individuals. Just like our students, we all come from different backgrounds, experiences with our vision and areas of interest. The person who coordinates this process is Abigail Shaw, part paper chaser, part interviewer, and to use her words, part platonic matchmaker. To interview her today is my cohost Rachel Grider. Rachel Grider: Thanks, Bryan. Abigail thinks of blindness as one of many parts of her identity. She attributes her positive attitude about her disability to her mother, who worked as a sign language interpreter, but also developed extensive knowledge about visual impairment along the way. Abigail studied music and audio engineering and is now pursuing her masters degree in social work. She moved from her home state of North Carolina to Brooklyn, New York. She is also a runner who has competed in marathons in New York City with Achilles International. She is also, incidentally, the audio engineer for this podcast. Welcome to the podcast as a speaker, Abigail. Abigail Shaw: Thanks, Rachel. It’s fun to be the person in front of the microphone. Rachel Grider: All right. So, how did you become interested in College Success? Abigail Shaw: I actually started working for the College Success program in the fall of 2015 as a mentor. Another staff person at the time had reached out to me and let me know that they were looking for mentors and shortly after being a mentor for about a semester, the position of mentor coordinator opened and the rest is history. Rachel Grider: That’s great. So, onto something that I’m sure everyone is curious about – matchmaking. Why do you call yourself a platonic matchmaker? And how does the process work for you and for a student? Abigail Shaw: So I kind of just think of it as a match. I’ve never witnessed or met someone who does matchmaking professionally. But the ways in which it’s conveyed through media or the classic Fiddler on the Roof musical, there’s usually really involved in getting to know as much as they can about these two parties and connecting them for, well, in the non platonic way of a happy life together as a married couple. But for all intents and purposes for our program, I think of it as a platonic matchmaker because I really try to learn as much as I can about the student and match them up with a mentor who has things in common with them; whether that’s through academics, the technology they use, their personality. So I compile all the information that the students and mentors both share with me and then I kind of shift things around and think about who would work best together. Rachel Grider: Right. That’s great. Sounds like a hard job but it sounds like a lot of fun too. So as a blind student, I always wanted to know what a job was like from day to day. Could you describe what your job looks like on a daily basis? Abigail Shaw: Yeah, so I also split my time at Learning Ally with our production department in helping to produce our audio books. So part of my day is spent on those tasks and the other part is on the College Success program. I’ve been working remotely for Learning Ally for the last about three years. So I work from home and occasionally go into our Princeton headquarters in New Jersey once a month or so. But I love getting to work from home. I create my own schedule. I have a little corner of my apartment where I always go to work. I have lots of meetings with our College Success program core team over video conferencing. I collaborate with my colleagues on Google Docs and Sheets a lot. I connect with our mentors and follow up on questions they might have in supporting students. I do a lot of reviewing of our audio for the audio books part and following up with our volunteer narrators and listeners to make sure that they are helping us to produce books in a timely manner so we can get them to students. So yeah so it’s kind of a mixed bag of things, a lot of interpersonal kind of work as well as some technical audio pieces too. Rachel Grider: That’s great. So you, you do a lot. That’s amazing. So what is one piece of advice you’d give college students on their journey? Abigail Shaw: So one thing I think when I think about starting college is that it was a bit of a scary time cause there was a lot of unknowns, certainly a lot of anticipation and excitement of getting to meet new people, learning lots of new things. But I think one thing that I would encourage students to remember is that it's ok to ask for help whenever you’re uncomfortable or not sure or you just need assistance doing something. Because asking for help doesn’t mean that you’re any less independent or capable. We all need to lean on each other at times. And so whether asking a professor to better explain an assignment, asking a roommate to help you if you’ve lost  a shoe that has seemed to disappear into the abyss, asking somebody in the cafeteria if you’re holding a bottle of orange juice versus apple juice, I think it's ok. And we should encourage one another to reach out whenever we need help with the small things and the big things.  Rachel Grider: Excellent. So is there anything else you’d like to share with us? Abigail Shaw: I’m just really excited that we have this program. I wish it had been around when I was a student. And I’m excited that we’re expanding to do things like this podcast and I hope that students will continue to stay in touch with us and give us their feedback on how things are working or how they could be better. Rachel Grider: Great. Thank you so much for coming on the program, Abigail. Abigail Shaw: Thanks, Rachel. Rachel Grider: Now we’d like to introduce a mentor and a couple of students who have benefited from this program. So first I’m going to bring Bryan back in. He is completing his PhD in software engineering at Arizona State University. He loves talking technology, writing software and building universally designed assistive technology. He is also the father of an 11 year old daughter and 9 year old twin sons. Bryan, welcome to the podcast as a guest. Bryan Duarte: Thank you, Rachel. Appreciate it. Rachel Grider: All right. So in general what was your college experience like and how did that inspire you to mentor? Bryan Duarte: That is a great question and one that I love to share with those who I interact with. I like to be honest with everybody that I speak with about this because it really is the reason why I do what I do. I always tell people that my first semester was almost my last semester in college, at least in higher education. I first started. I took two classes at a community college and I thought things were going pretty well for what I could expect from a community college. And when I got to a university, I was always kind of under the impression that oh things are going to be so amazing. They’re going to have all the resources. They’re really going to have this accommodation thing down pat and the only struggle I’m going to have is doing the classes, right. Well I was wrong. I wasn’t as accurate. And I think a lot of our students can attest to this. That not all universities do have it down pat. Some might, but others don’t. So really what it takes is being able to advocate for yourself. And so my first semester was almost my last semester because I got there and I was taking calculus and physics and some pretty tough courses as a somewhat newly blind student. And there wasn’t much support there and it came to the point where I had to drop calculus and I had to focus all my time, so many hours in the tutor center. But I ended up getting through it. So my original stop was to not give up and just to keep going and seek out resources and kind of like we all do, we find workarounds and find ways to solve the problems that we

  4. 05/29/2020

    Learning Ally's College Success Program podcast - College Knowledge - has officially launched!

    Learning Ally's College Success Program podcast - College Knowledge - has officially launched! Being a college student with a visual impairment can be challenging but connecting to the College Success Program can help you make the most of this experience and succeed in reaching your goals. Join our mentors and cohosts, Bryan Duarte, Rachel Grider and Rashad Jones as they explore the academic, the professional, and the personal aspects of College Knowledge. If you are a college student who is blind or who has low vision, or you are curious about the world of college and visual impairment, this show is for you! Episode 1: Welcome to the College Success Program! In this inaugural episode of College Knowledge, our hosts interview two members of Learning Ally's College Success Program staff. Learn more about the program's history and origins, as well as about the program's hopes for the future. Click here for Episode 1: Welcome to the College Success Program! Podcast Link Learn more about the College Success Program and sign up at learningally.org/CollegeSuccess.   Episode 1: Welcome to the College Success Program! Transcript Rachel Grider: Welcome to College Knowledge. Learning Ally's podcast for college students who are blind or visually impaired. We will being with episode 1 - A very brief history of college success at Learning Ally. In this episode we will introduce you to some of the program staff and explain briefly what the program is about. Here to help unearth this history is my co-host, Rashad Jones.  Rashad Jones: Thanks Rachel. But before we get to that, I think we should probably tell our listeners why we’re here in the first place. So, what got you interested in the program? Rachel Grider: Well Rashad, I have been blind all my life. I have always had a passion for music and I earned Bachelor’s degrees in vocal performance and composition and Master’s degree in voice performance and music theory pedagogy. After I graduated in 2013, I moved back to California to teach. I am currently teaching voice at an Arts Academy and choir at a local high school, as well as performing freelance. I began working as a CSP mentor in 2017  and I have really enjoyed it. I have learned a great deal from my colleagues and students and I really value the many discussions I have had with them. This program is such a great resource and I wish that it had been available to me when I was in school. So, how about you Rashad? Rashad Jones: Well thanks Rachel. I’m Rashad Jones and I’m excited to be one of the hosts in College Knowledge, I really am. I have retinopathy of prematurity so that’s what caused my visual impairment. So it’s something I have dealt with all my life. I work at a local center, independent living, here in my hometown called Access to Independence. There, I help students of all ages focus on goals and developing their futures. I’ve worked for Learning Ally since 2016, and my students and I teach one another on a regular basis. You know, I was struggling in college, a music education major - so we’ve got some similarities there. But I was trying to figure it all out, often times on my own. So I really know what it's like to feel like you’re the only blind college student around anywhere. I know what it's like to know that you have potential but not really know how to unlock that potential. I’m excited to share some tips and tricks that will hopefully make your journey a little bit better and more fulfilling.  Rachel Grider: Well, enough about us. Let's hear from our guests. Do you have our first guest Rashad? Rashad Jones: Yeah, I sure do. Our first guest is Kristen Witucki, our curriculum and content editor who has been part of Learning Ally since 1993, part of its staff since off and on since 2005 and part of the program since 2014. Blind since birth, Kristen wears many hats in her life. In the CSP, College Success Program, she’s in charge of hunting down engaging content for you, the students. Outside of the program, she is an author, a teacher, and the mother of 3 children. So, welcome Kristen to College Knowledge. Kristen Witucki: Thanks Rashad and Rachel for having me. Rashad Jones: Alright so let's get started. I got us a few questions to ask you. So, how did you become interested in the program? Kristen Witucki: Well, I’ve been in college a long time, probably longer than most people recommend. So, my Bachelor’s degree is in music and I have Master’s degrees in Gifted Education, Creative Writing, and teaching students who are blind and visually impaired. Along the way, I’ve had a lot of great experiences in higher education and some that weren’t so good. So I think of myself primarily as an introvert for instance, but I had to learn to be really outgoing and to advocate any second to make sure that I can participate fully in my college experience. And a lot of students who are blind and visually impaired, if they’re lucky, have to transition from having a lot of support in the K-12 setting such as aids and TVI’s, and O&M,  to having much, much, less support in a college setting. And I really wanted to develop materials that addressed them directly as they go through that transition.  Rashad Jones: Okay, yeah that makes a lot of sense. Really providing that support is something that I feel very strongly about so I’m glad that we have you to head that up. So could you please tell us how the program got started?  Kristen Witucki: Learning Ally contracted with a research firm called Conifer and the firm wanted to find out what students who are blind or visually impaired really needed and I think Learning Ally was expecting to get some recommendations about books because as many people know, we are at least, first and foremost. As many people know, we are an audio book library, so Learning Ally was hoping to gather some information on how to make the books better, but they were also open to basically anything that came out of the research and Conifer followed a group of fifteen students through their semesters at college, and spent time with them inside and outside of their classes and talked with them and people who worked closely with them. And based on all of that data, they came up with four key insights that really drove our program. The first insight was that students really needed to be at the center of their learning from day one, when they started school. So they had to be aware of all of the people in their networks, who were there for them, but also how to actually utilize those relationships right away, and if they didn’t, they were already behind. People in their networks included professors, disabilities offices, people the offices contracted with to help with reading or note-taking, just to name a few of those relationships and there are several more. And that’s way more than a typical student would have to deal with so the VDI student really comes in having to work with those relationships right away. And if they weren’t, if they weren’t proactive with them then they were falling behind. The second insight was that the classroom was really at the center of people’s learning experiences. If you didn't show up to class, you missed a whole lot of information, even if you were trying to catch up with the notes. And if you were in class, and you had a professor who wasn’t working very well, who was talking in visual language saying this and over there and as you can see from the picture I’ve drawn on the board, that student was again already very much behind. The third insight was that students really needed to use technology efficiently, which many of them could, because we are in a digital age but they were not applying it very well in a college setting. So you can’t really write a paper on your iPhone for instance - just doesn’t work. And then the final insight was that students were often isolated from campus activities, whether it was because things were posted on signs, or they didn’t know how to get to the meeting or the dining hall or wherever or they just felt self-conscious about putting themselves out there. A lot of students ended up being isolated. Another thing that led to social isolation was that some of the students in the study were taking courses online. They were doing this for financial and logistical reasons, but one drawback to that was that they felt really disconnected from their peers. So basically, we took all of that information and we designed a program that we hope addresses some of those concerns and others that came up along the way.  Rashad Jones: Okay, alright, got you. Sounds like a lot went into developing the program and a lot of care was taken so it could be the best it could be. So, could you just describe the primary components of the program? What is the program really made up of? Kristen Witucki: The first component of the program is the one I think is the most popular, and it's certainly the one that students engage with the most deeply and that is mentorship. So, students meet with mentors who are blind or visually impaired and often the mentors share their interests, their broad field of study, or their visual impairment or their technology. There’s something that they have in common. And the mentors are people who have successfully navigated their undergraduate experience, so they’re in grad school or they’re working or both, and can really relate to where the students are and can help them to make sure they don’t have the terrible experiences that we saw in our research. The second component of the program is the one that I primarily work with, and that is a curriculum of resources. So we have several courses that students can access on their own time about a number of challenges that come up when you are blind or visually impaired and you’re in college. The original five courses came directly from our research. So, they are communi

  • 4 Episodes

Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
4 Ratings

About

Being a college student with a visual impairment can be challenging but connecting to the College Success Program can help you make the most of this experience and succeed in reaching your goals. Join our mentors and cohosts, Bryan Duarte, Rachel Grider and Rashad Jones as they explore the academic, the professional, and the personal aspects of College Knowledge.

Information