Hi Mary.

Unfortunately, I've been out of college for nearly 20 years, so a lot has
changed.  I was a student in the S.I. Newhouse School of Public
Communications at Syracuse University.  In those days, I was still a pretty
good partial, and could still read handwritten notes if I had a strong lamp
and a heavy marker.  But, I never could see blackboards, and overhead
projectors were difficult in many cases.  So, I primarily took notes based
upon what was said, rather than what was written on the blackboard, and i
made a point of telling my instructors so on the first day of classes.

I did do some taping on some classes, although I ran into one professor who
forbade me to tape classes.  His stated reason was that he was writing a
book and some of the material that he presented in his classes would be in
the book.  That seemed a little ridiculous to me, and if I had had less
vision, I might have challenged it, but taping was more of a convenience
for me than a necessity because I did still have enough vision to write
notes by hand.

I think life is a good bit better for blind and visually impaired folks
today.  When I went to school, my written work was composed on an old
Smith-Corona manual typewriter (a slow and laborious process that I
hated).  I was happy to trade that typewriter for my first talking computer
about five years after I got out of college.  Computers were still very new
when I was in school, and there was no adaptive technology to speak of.

I suspect that my college experience would have been much different with
computer technology, a copy of JAWS, the Internet, and a Type 'n Speak to
lug to classes.

Those are the tools that I use now in my work place.  Incidentally, I never
did get a toe hold in my first love which was radio broadcasting.  But, I
did make a good living for a time as a computer programmer, and now I work
as an adaptive technology instructor here in Rochester, NY.  The retinitis
pigmentosa which is the cause of my vision impairment is now much worse
than it was twenty years ago, and I suspect that college would be a much
different experience for me now.

I think that technology has opened many doors that were half closed twenty
years ago.  If I had the vision then that I do now, I don't know how or if
I would have coped with it.  I certainly have had the experiences with
readers that didn't get reading done in time, or turned in undecipherable
tapes.  It was frankly easier to beat the daylights out of my eyes than to
rely on others to read for me, and the inability to move back and forth
easily on tape was maddening.  I would get very fatigued, and the headaches
were horrible sometimes.

Unfortunately, I find that scanners, which I rely on a lot today, are still
very limited in their effectiveness.  There is still a lot of critically
important things that won't scan that I just have to lay aside until I can
get a reader to read it for me.  But, it is getting better.

73, de Lou K2LKK
Rochester, NY


  At 10:44 PM 10/24/01 -0400, you wrote:
>Good Evening,
>
>I must do a short presentation about the problems that Blind and Visually
>Impaired people have attending university and college. I will be talking
>about how people cope with these problems.
>
>If anyone has any information or expirences I would be interested.
>
>Thanks,
>
>Mary Marchand

Louis (Kim) Kline, A.R.S.  K2LKK
e-mail:  [log in to unmask]
Work e-mail:  [log in to unmask]
Work Tel.  (716) 697-5753