College STAR Student Blog

1. College STAR Student Blog Blogs Meet The Team! My name is Chelsea, and I am from Chapel Hill, North Carolina. I am 22 years young, and I will graduate with a degree in Communications and a Minor in Hospitality this May! I was diagnosed with dyslexia and a processing disorder in the 2nd grade. I am beating the odds against learning disabled students by attending college and being recognized on the Chancellors list. I hope to work in public relations, tourism, fashion, or the luxury lifestyle industry anywhere in the world. My name is Courtney; I’m 19 years old, and from Raleigh, North Carolina. I am currently in my second year at East Carolina University where I am majoring in Communications with a concentration in Public Relations. One day I hope to work in pharmaceutical sales or in the field of marketing. Growing up with a learning difference affected me in numerous ways, both positively and negatively. My name is Daniel, I am 22 years old, and was born and raised in Charlotte, North Carolina. I was diagnosed with slow processing speed in my sophomore year of high school. I am currently in my senior year at East Carolina University, pursuing a major in Recreation and Leisure Studies. I want to do something related to outdoor recreation, because I love being outdoors and discovering new ways to enjoy what nature has to offer. Hello, my name is Kelly! I am from Charlotte, North Carolina, am 21 years old, and have a learning difference. I’m currently in my junior year of college at East Carolina University and am majoring in Psychology, which I intend to continue studying on into graduate school. Eventually, I want to open my own practice and provide testing for students with potential learning differences. My name is Lee, I am 20 years old, and a Junior at East Carolina University. My major is Family and Community Services (with a concentration in Early Intervention), and I hope to someday go to graduate school to become a licensed Marriage and Family therapist. After growing up in Washington, DC, I am a city girl at heart! I was diagnosed with dyslexia in second grade. My name is Marell and my home town is Charlotte, NC. I’m 21 years old, currently a sophomore at East Carolina University, and have been diagnosed with dyslexia. I’m majoring in English and minoring in Communications with the dream of one day becoming an accomplished novelist. I love college, and have had some amazing experiences at East Carolina. My name is Meghan, I am nineteen years old, in my second year at East Carolina University, and an aspiring nursing student. I was born in Albany, New York but was raised in Sanford, North Carolina where I attended Lee County High School. I am a college student with a learning difference and was diagnosed with dyslexia and attention deficit disorder during my senior year of high school. My name is Sam, I am a junior at East Carolina University, and have been diagnosed with dyslexia and ADD with comprehension disabilities. I’m from Charlotte, NC, went to Charlotte Catholic high school, and then graduated from The Fletcher School. Right now I’m majoring in RCLS, specializing in Rec and Park Management. I love the outdoors and hope to find a career that keeps me in the wilderness or by the ocean. I first found out that I learned differently in fourth grade. By Daniel Many high school students today are worried about getting the same or similar accommodations in college that they received in high school. While these are very legitimate concerns, students can relax thanks to the Americans with Disabilities Amendment Act of 2006, which states that all universities must provide accommodations to their students. However, they may not be exactly the kind you are used to. All public universities have some sort of disability support. At my school, East Carolina University, we have an office called Disability Support Services (DSS). DSS is a branch of the university that provides students with learning differences or other disabilities accommodations to help them in their classes. DSS aims to even the playing field for students that may otherwise have a disadvantage. To do this, specific accommodations will be given to suit a student’s needs. These services have the means and resources to help students. But rather than providing a set list of accommodations for all their students, they simply ask each person what is needed in order to be successful in the classroom. The support services would then do everything they can, within reason, to meet those needs. Some examples of common accommodations for students with learning differences might be extended time on tests, testing in a low distraction environment, note takers, and textbooks in audio or electronic form. Before you get involved with these kinds of programs, it would be a good idea to become familiar with your needs and to know what kind of accommodations would be helpful. However, the program’s staff will be familiar with most types of learning differences and will be able to help determine what could be beneficial for you in college classes. If you want to get set up with your future school’s disability support program, you will need to have documentation showing that you have a learning difference. The program’s office may have a form for you to give your doctor or psychologist to fill out, or they may need other types of documentation. It all just depends on what they require for you to be accepted in their particular program. They do this so they have certified verification of your learning difference and know what sort of accommodations you would need to succeed in college. Most of these programs have a very strict privacy policy, so there is no need to worry about unwanted information getting out. If you feel that this is something you would be interested in, the first step is contacting the support services office of your college by phone or email. You should be able to find these support programs on your college’s website. Your freshman year in college will most likely be a major transition from the life you knew in high school. The freedom it brings is invigorating, and you have the chance to meet tons of new, interesting people. College offers many different activities and organizations to get involved in, as well as plenty to do in your spare time. However, all these great freedoms and opportunities come with even greater personal responsibility. Countless college students face pitfalls and temptations every day. These can be in the form of anything like parties, sports, road trips, or friends simply wanting to hang out. It is vital to keep in mind that college is a school and your studies should always come first. Having a LD only makes this last statement more crucial. It is important to know what resources are available and use them to your full advantage. I assure you there will be plenty of time to do non-school related things; don’t forget you live on a vibrant college campus. But to manage everything successfully, you must learn how to balance your life. Organization is key when it comes to handling a hectic college schedule and can be a lifesaver in the long run. The main categories you need to make sure are present when prioritizing are: keeping up with school work, staying healthy, and finding time to relax. Only after you take care of these important areas should you consider adding more to your plate. Read through our blogs for advice, tools, and stories we have to offer on different aspects of college life. You can also send us any questions or concerns you may have through our Student to Student Q and A, and offer your own advice on LD on the DL. We want to help you be successful your first year; however, in the end it is up to you to determine what kind of college experience you will have. Our Mission Many high school seniors feel both excitement and anxiety when thinking about college. Students with learning differences may feel more apprehension than most and have questions or concerns about what to expect at their new school. Our mission on the College STAR student website is to help incoming college freshmen with learning differences feel prepared to enter a college or university setting. We are a team of current college students with LDs of our own. Each of us has made the transition into a university and learned how to use the available resources to succeed both in and outside the classroom. Through this online resource, our team shares stories, advice, and useful tools we have gained through our experiences as college students to help guide others as they start their own college journeys. By Lee In college everyone takes notes differently. It is important to find the method that works best for you. Maybe it’s through using an assistive technology like the Smartpen, typing notes on your computer, or making good old-fashioned hand-written notes. Every professor has a different style of teaching, and sometimes your style of note taking may need to change with various professors. Some professors provide notes with blanks to fill in, others provide power points, and some don’t offer any note taking structure at all. Disability support departments at many universities also offer note takers. These are people, usually fellow students, who sit in a class and provide copies of their notes for other students. If you don’t want note takers to know who you are, they can drop the copies off at a central location (like the disabilities support office) for you. The note taker may be paid by the university or doing it for volunteer hours. Either way, this is a great resource available for students to use. When possible, be sure to take the time to make yourself aware of what you will be discussing in each class beforehand. For example, if you know what chapter you will be covering in an upcoming lecture, you should read it in advance. That way you can have a better understanding of the material than you would if seeing it for the first time. A bonus advantage to this is that if you can’t grasp a concept when you read it, you will know to pay extra close attention to that topic in class. It’s also smart to review notes from previous lectures so that they stay fresh in your mind for the test. Also, making a friend in every class is ideal. If you ever miss a class, you can ask to borrow their notes. (P.s. this should be used for times when you can’t make it to class, not when you don’t want to make it to class.) Many classes in college have cumulative final exams. This means that the final exams include everything you have covered over the whole semester! It’s important to keep all your notes and handouts from each class together and organized until you’re positive you will no longer need them (a.k.a. after the class is over). Digging through everything you own to find something important for class at the last minute is no one’s idea of fun! Personally, I ask all my professors to send me the notes or Power Point files for each class meeting ahead of time. That way I can print them out and take them to class with me. I then take notes on the sides of each slide. This allows me to spend more time focusing on what my professor is saying rather than copying the basic terms off of the slides. Instead I will have the time to write the examples, antidotes, and any other side notes that the professor gives to support the basic information on the slides. Sometimes I am not lucky enough to write down everything before the lecture moves on. But I still try to write down key words or things that seem super important: like something that has been repeated a few times or if the professor has taken the time to talk about something in more detail. I also may compare notes with friends so we can fill in any info we missed during the lecture. Another option is to go talk to your teachers; they love answering questions about their subject. But like I said, note taking varies from person to person, and it takes time to figure out what is really best for you. Once you figure out the strategies that work, you will succeed in most class…even if it seems difficult in the beginning. By Sam I feel a college is best compared to a small town or community. Freshmen, who usually live on campus, are especially in the middle of it all. But when existing in such close quarters like the dorms, illnesses and diseases can and do spread rapidly. Being sick in high school might have even been a treat because it meant one less day of sitting in class for 6 hours. In college, missing a day or two of classes is much more crippling now that “in-class” time is reduced to 3 hours or less a week per class. And don’t rely on professors to always catch you up. They generally know exactly who misses class! I also know from personal experience that they will not help slacking students with poor attendance! So it’s best to avoid missing important class time and make staying healthy one of your main priorities. Never forget the simple things. Always wash your hands, don’t drink after other people, and remember to cough/sneeze into tissues. These should go without saying, yet it doesn’t happen as often as you would expect. Come on, you know it’s true; we all have left the bathroom without washing our hands at some point in time. Well, living on a school campus with hundreds of students around at all times makes this a bigger deal than you would think. It’s inevitable that we touch things that others have touched. Think about the day to day objects that we use which do not get cleaned regularly. For example: lecture hall desks, door knobs, chairs, and keyboards. The dorms can also become cesspools without some basic care and cleaning. Staff members don’t clean up dorm rooms, so if students don’t clean, they can get pretty gross fast! Another major place for germs to congregate is the gym. No one wants to touch gym equipment that is sweaty, sticky, and gross. All gyms have sanitizing cleaner and towel stations. Use these to clean the equipment after each use so the next person stays out of your sweat residue. My point being that practicing simple habits, like washing your hands or cleaning up after yourself, on a regular basis can make the world of a difference and can help keep you and others germ free. Sometimes it’s impossible to avoid getting sick, and most universities have planned for this. Universities offer student healthcare services in which a student can make an appointment for anything from prescription refills to broken bones. With today’s modern technology, schools make it simple to make appointments online or with smartphone compatibility. These centers are great for on-the-go students who don’t have time to go to a family physician or find a new doctor around town. Some colleges have a pharmacy as well as physicians. Here students are able to find all the necessities found at retail drug stores as well as prescription drugs. Also, it is a really good idea to schedule regular check-ups and stay up-to-date on vaccinations, especially the flu vaccine, to be proactive in the fight against germs and viruses. I’ve been at East Carolina for 3 years now and have not been through a winter without a flu epidemic. When I say this, I don’t mean anything life threatening, just that there is a time of year when everyone I know seems to get sick with the flu. So don’t come in with the “it won’t happen to me” attitude and do what you can to prevent yourself from getting sick. By Courtney When writing papers we often assume that as soon as we’ve reached that word count we’re finished. We save it, print it, and go. Easy, right? Unfortunately the answer is no; it’s not that simple, and that mindset tends to encourage procrastination until the last minute. This also will mean papers will be turned in with errors, unnecessary mistakes, and even unclear information. Instead, there is a vital step in writing papers that many students tend to overlook and that will help you turn in an awesome paper: editing. This involves more than just scanning over the word count and tweaking the first or final sentence. It includes taking significant time and determination to make the written assignment the best it can possibly be. Many people think it’s the professor’s job to edit. However, this is where students quickly learn why self-editing is so substantial, because professors don’t edit. Instead of waiting until the night before or the morning of a due date to complete your assignment, plan ahead. Do this at least a few days prior to your deadline. Planning ahead gives enough time to edit and revise at least one or two drafts. By giving yourself a few days, you will not only escape the burnout from pulling an all-nighter, but you will also have time to have someone else take a look at it. Even the best of writers go through a lot of edits and revisions. Before completing your first draft, it is important to have read over the requirements and guidelines of the assignment again and again to ensure you have incorporated exactly what your professor or teacher wants in the paper. Upon finishing the first rough draft, the next step is revising, which entails major organizational and structural changes. After that comes editing the paper. That is when you look for grammar, spelling, tense, and wording errors. For instance, in the first round of edits look only for grammar errors, on your second round read through looking only for spelling, and so on with the other areas. This will go faster than you might think and help really crack down on errors in your paper. Of course, if you spot one or more of the other error areas go ahead and correct it. The point of only looking for one type at a time is to make sure you get the chance to actually look for each of them. After that, read your paper out loud to yourself or have someone else (or an electronic reader) read it to you. I have found this to be one of the most beneficial steps in the final stages of editing. After you have personally revised your work, an additional person comes into play. Allow a friend or tutor to look over what you would have otherwise turned in as your final paper. They may be able to catch things you completely missed. If you have given yourself a few days for editing and revising, finding time to let someone else look over your paper should not be a problem. It will only make your final paper stronger. While having a reliable person read over your work, also have them read the assignment to make sure they understand the concept and guidelines from the professor. Before you take their suggestions for final revisions, ask questions and be sure you understand what they mean in their edits or recommendations. Finally, re-read your final product, and then you are ready to go! These editing suggestions are not supposed to stress or worry you, but are only suggestions for perfecting assignments from people who have been there. In conclusion, remember the first step is to make sure you understand the assignment, write a first draft, edit and revise it, and allow other reliable sources help you perfect it. By Chelsea 1. Business Cards Business cards are ranked at the top of my networking check list. The exchange of a business card is to be expected at the end of a conversation. This is an efficient way to give someone your contact information. When someone stumbles upon your card, they will remember you and the conversation you had. If you are speaking with someone who you think will be able to help you or you are interested in staying in touch with, ask for his or her card! You can follow up with an email or call. Vistaprint.com has many different business card templates to choose from, and you can even make your own. It is never too early to get your own business card, even if you don’t work yet! 2. Resume Once you arrive at college, you will have to start over in terms of job and experience. Lets put it this way. You are 21 applying for an internship among 50 other applicants. The fact that you were on the honor roll when you were 15 (in high school) will carry zero weight for employers. With this being said, every year of college you should strive to add things that will develop your resume. This can be done by making good grades, applying for scholarships, volunteering, and being active on campus. Please make sure at the end of college you have developed more hobbies than drinking, hanging out with friends, or partying. Resume templates can be found online. There are also resources on some campuses (career centers, classes, and writing centers) that will help you write your resume. 3. Leather Resume Folder A leather resume folder screams professional when you walk into a room. I purchased mine at my school store and it has my school logo engraved on the flap. These folders store your resume, business cards and have a note pad all in one. If you are attending an informational meeting, training, or any networking type event, bring this along. Sit in the front and take notes. This will show employers you are listening and engaged. 4. Name Tag Some events you attend will give you the stick on “Hello my name is” nametag. Be a step ahead and bring your own. I’m employed at Campus Dinning at East Carolina and I have a work nametag. I wear this nametag to all events. It looks more professional and shows that I currently hold a job. Nametags can also be purchased online. Don’t forget the proper side a nametag should go on is the right side of your chest! 5. Suit You know you have entered the real world when you purchase your first suit. I remember for my first interview I wore a conservative yellow skirt and the interviewer told me “the business world does not like color. Get a suit.” Looking the part is important when networking. When attending any event for a job, internship, information session, career fair, or interview, wear a suit. How It Started In the spring of 2012, Dr. Sarah Williams approached Marell Cook with the idea of creating blog type website that would give advise to future and current college students who have learning differences. Marell gladly took up the challenge, and in the fall of 2012 the website first started to take shape. She worked alongside Tanner Jones, who created and helped design the website, and a team of fellow students as bloggers to help pull all the fundamental aspects together and bring the College STAR Student Blog to life. As of right now, the website still has a lot of growing left to do and will eventually have videos and other helpful features to go with its advice giving blogs. Advisors Dr. Sarah Williams Tanner Jones