These Will Be The Only Things I've Learned From "Higher Education"

[yasonablack]

I had high hopes for this university. ‘Here,’ I had thought, ‘here, I’ll learn something and I’ll be ready for life.’ In a way, I was right. I wish I hadn’t been. Similar to my two years of community college, during the third year and half of the fourth of college, I dealt with OCD and college. I got a new part-time job that actually helped calm my

Comments

[lightningxsnow]

Do you mind if I print this out to give to my Disability Studies and Equity Studies professors? It's super amazing, and I totally can relate, having a disability and being in university myself. Luckily, I'm now at a more progressive program in a more progressive university (although there are still some issues), but in my first year, I had huge issues with some of my professors. I was pretty ill with my bipolar disorder at the time (on top of having a learning disability), and a professor huffed and puffed about giving me a 1 day extension on a major assignment (and he almost didn't give me the extension at all) because I was recovering from a medication-induced mixed state. He said I was being irresponsible and should have managed my time better. Ha!

[yasonablack]

Not at all. :) After I get my grades, I plan on emailing every unaccommodating professor I've had. And ugh, I hate it when professors say you should "manage your time better", no one (not even TABs) can tell when an illness is going to come or flare. Oddly enough, the profs tend to have no problem changing the syllabus when they get sick.

[yasonablack]

And if you were in a coma, you MUST PROVE it by going to the Dean of the school. A doctor's note will not suffice.

cool story, bro

[doitninetimes]

So I am a TA at my university, and the first time I had a student come in with an accommodation letter, I had no idea what I was supposed to do as that was never any part of my TA training (which was completely shitty in general, but that's a rant for another day), so I passed the student on to the professor who had been teaching here for about a million years. Despite the length of his tenure, he seemed to have no idea how to provide the necessary accommodations, pushed the whole thing off on me, and the student, who was new to the school, understandably had no idea what resources were available either. It was ridic how many people I had to call to figure out how to get an alternate exam site for this kid, and how non-accommodating the people running it were.

/cool story bro

[staticmatrix]

My uni's campus seems ridiculously inaccessible. The central area is cobblestoned and a lot of the classes take place in little 18th century townhouses with spiral staircases and no access for disabled students. Even the student union, I get that it's a really old building, but none of the access is signposted and they could do more. These issues don't even affect me personally but it's so obvious how bad they are at accommodating disabled students and the age of the uni isn't really an excuse. :/

[lullabee_lj]

At my school, it seems that there are either elevators or decent handicap-accessible bathrooms, but never both. Last year, my roommate severely sprained her ankle and said showering was a hassle -- the dorm had only shower stalls where you have to stand up and a bath tub which anyone would do themselves an injury getting into and which was never used. I think it was kind of taboo to use the bath, because it was thought to be infested with germs. But at least the building had an elevator. This year, I'm in a residence hall where there's a big handicapped bathroom with a bench in the shower on each floor, and no elevators. It's like the gift of the Magi or something.

Also, there's a student at my school who has to use an aid dog, and last year wrote a blog entry about how they weren't letting her into the dining halls...

[youkiddinright]

Thank you for sharing this.