Podcasts about college knowledge

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Send us a textIn this episode of College Knowledge, Joe the College Pro and Dave the CEO take a hard look at the U.S. Department of Education. They break down the recent FAFSA overhaul disaster, analyze the Department's track record since its creation in 1980, and explore the systemic issues plaguing education today.From financial aid mismanagement to skyrocketing education costs, the conversation uncovers major failures while remaining focused on solutions. The hosts emphasize curiosity over judgment, diving into potential reforms and the need for a more effective education system.

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Episode 099: of the American Grown Podcast in the Colortech Creative Solutions studios with Donovin Lindsay & Taylor Shepley Founder & Director of Operations at College Knowledge.-In this episode Donovin & Shep share with us their journey from meeting in college, to now working together to help educate the youth navigate the college selection process.-To learn more about College Knowledge click here: https://www.collegeknowledgefoundation.org-#ad this episode is brought to you by these sponsors:Triggered 22. Support a local veteran and help spread awareness for PTSD & #22aday.Cleona Coffee Roasters. A small batch coffee roastery & coffee shop, veteran & first responder owned located inside 911 Rapid Response in Annville PA.Colortech Creative Solutions. Colortech Creative Solutions takes your creative projects from visualization to realization since 1980 while keeping your budget in mind.-To see photos of today's guest follow our Social media: IG- https://www.instagram.com/americangrownpodcast/ FB-https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100077655465940 or visits us at https://rss.com/podcasts/americangrownpodcast/

Ending the year with REMEMBERING what God did for us this year! This is the season finale, but we will, Lord willing, be back in 2024 with more content! Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year! www.christiangirlspop.com --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/christiangirlspop/support

You're home for the holidays and you're trying to navigate all the drama and fun times that come with that! What do you do? Go to God and His Word! Tune in for some verses that can help you in this season! Selah Retreat: https://www.christiangirlspop.com/events/selahinprayer23 www.christiangirlspop.com --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/christiangirlspop/support

There's great debate these days about the merits of a college education. Here, an expert on the topic, Harvard's David Deming, weighs in with facts and insights on how colleges fail and succeed, the essential skills universities need to teach, how a college education fights inequality, the true usefulness of college, and more.

"Show me 5 of your friends, and I'll show you who you are". FRIENDS play a huge role in our lives. Who are we hanging with? How are they affecting us? How do we know when it's time to let someone go? www.christiangirlspop.com --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/christiangirlspop/support

Mental health issues are plaguing our world at a very alarming rate, especially in the younger generations. Tune in to hear about both practical and spiritual ways to improve your mental health. SELAH RETREAT: https://www.christiangirlspop.com/events/selahinprayer23 Website: www.christiangirlspop.com --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/christiangirlspop/support

In this episode of the College Knowledge podcast, hosts Dave Kozak and Joe Kerins discuss various trends and challenges facing higher education. They highlight the decline in students attending higher education institutions, with a specific focus on the decrease in male enrollment since 2010. The pandemic has further complicated this trend, with blue-collar jobs struggling to find employees and some parents unwilling to let their children experience the measures taken by educational institutions during this time.The hosts also discuss the increasing trend of students only willing to attend elite institutions, and if they don't get in, they choose not to go to college at all. This mentality is analyzed in the context of the current parenting style that aims to prevent failure rather than allowing children to learn from it.Furthermore, the episode touches on the changes in standardized testing, specifically the SAT, and how making the test easier has had a negative impact on college admissions and the academic rigor of elite institutions. The hosts argue that this dilutes the value of education and has a long-term negative effect on the workforce.Overall, the podcast emphasizes the importance of making critical decisions when it comes to higher education, considering the social, academic, and financial fit for the family.Watch Here:Trends in Higher Education: Is Higher Ed In Trouble?? Video Version of Podcast YouTube:The College Knowledge PodcastFollow us on social media:InstagramFacebookLinkedInVisit us online:The College Knowledge Podcast WebsiteElite Collegiate Planning

How can you be bold in their faith? What does it look like to be a Christian on your college campus? TUNE IN TODAY! Women's Retreat: https://www.christiangirlspop.com/events/selahinprayer23 To make a donation to CGPOP: Venmo:@christiangirlspop CashApp: $christiangirlspop PayPal: cgpopdonate@gmail.com WWW.CHRISTIANGIRLSPOP.COM --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/christiangirlspop/support

You've got ALL THE THINGS on your plate right now. Exams, social life, group projects....the list goes on and on right? How do you balance it all? Listen in for some practical AND spiritual tips! SELAH RETREAT: https://www.christiangirlspop.com/events/selahinprayer23 Donations: Venmo: @christiangirlspop CashApp: $christiangirlspop Paypal: cgpopdonate@gmail.com --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/christiangirlspop/support

In this enlightening episode of the "College Knowledge" podcast, host Dave Kozak and co-host Joe Kerins engage in a riveting conversation with Dr. Martin Elvis, a renowned astrophysicist from the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Dr. Elvis recounts his personal journey, starting as a high school student unfamiliar with the intricacies of higher education, to becoming a leading voice in astrophysics. The trio delves deep into the realm of space exploration, discussing the influence of private space initiatives by pioneers like Elon Musk and Richard Branson, the groundbreaking potential of asteroid mining, and the multifaceted economics of space ventures. Dr. Elvis also sheds light on the latest advancements in rocket technology, the challenges and prospects of space-based resource extraction, and the legal and economic facets of mining celestial entities. This episode offers a comprehensive insight into the future of space exploration and the myriad opportunities it heralds.Watch Here:Wait, We Can Mine Asteroids and 3D Print Hearts In Space?? Video Version of Podcast YouTube:The College Knowledge PodcastFollow us on social media:InstagramFacebookLinkedInVisit us online:The College Knowledge Podcast WebsiteElite Collegiate Planning

Breaking away from our usual "College Knowledge" content to bring some coverage from the Woman Evolve 2023 Conference, hosted by Sarah Jakes Roberts in Arlington, TX. Featuring an interview with Comedian and Actress Yvonne Orji as she shares insights into her life and how she stands firm in her faith despite temptations! You don't want to miss the interview! WWW.WOMANEVOLVECONFERENCE.COM --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/christiangirlspop/support

When you go to college, you make a lot of big decisions, but the most important decision you make is about your FAITH! What will you do now that your faith is in your hands? SELAH RETREAT: https://www.christiangirlspop.com/events/selahinprayer23 --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/christiangirlspop/support

Freedom is one of the best parts of going to college! You get to begin building your own life! It's amazing...BUT it requires responsibility! Steward your freedom well. Tune in to hear Stephanie's personal experiences in college, along with a bible study on freedom! SELAH IN PRAYER RETREAT https://www.christiangirlspop.com/events/selahinprayer23

Kicking off the "College Knowledge" Series, here's a little bit of my story! Get ready to know a bit more about me, my college journey, my highs and lows, and hear some funny moments too! -Stephanie, CEO & Founder of Christian Girls P.O.P.

Welcome to College Knowledge! In this episode of our podcast, sponsored by the College Planning Network and Paradigm Financial Group, hosts Dave Kozak and Joe Kerins provide valuable insights and strategies for college-bound students and their parents. They kick off the episode by discussing the importance of utilizing your summer wisely and offer tips for students at different stages, from incoming freshmen to rising seniors. They highlight the significance of continuous learning, exploring interests, volunteering, setting goals, and planning for the future to make the most of your summer break and prepare for a successful college journey.Later in the episode, they dive into the comprehensive topic of navigating the college application process. Whether you're a freshman exploring interests, a sophomore preparing for advanced coursework, a junior narrowing down college options, or a senior finalizing your applications, this episode has got you covered. Dave and Joe emphasize the importance of continuous learning, goal setting, researching colleges, understanding financial aid, and documenting accomplishments for college applications. With their expert advice and practical tips, you'll be well-equipped to make informed decisions and maximize your chances of success throughout the college application journey.Don't miss this combined episode of College Knowledge, where you'll gain valuable insights on maximizing your summer break and navigating the college application process. Tune in now and empower yourself for a successful college journey! Follow us on social media:https://www.instagram.com/elitecollegiateplanning/https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100086096088113https://www.linkedin.com/company/elite-collegiate-planning/Visit us online:https://elitecollegiateplanning.com/https://collegeknowledge.net/

In this episode, we ask: Who needs to hear this? Would you like a free book? Who is going to college? Who is Dave Kozak? Who is Joe Kerins? What are some strategies beyond college planning? What about strategic planning and critical thinking skills? How does one plan for the non-college path? What matters to...

Beth Prost, founder and CEO of At The Core, discusses the importance of career exploration and self-assessment for high school students in the College Knowledge podcast. She emphasizes the need for students to try out different classes, extracurricular activities, and part-time jobs to gain knowledge and craft reasonable aspirations for their future careers.Visit At The Core:https://www.gettingatthecore.com/ Follow us on social media:https://www.instagram.com/elitecollegiateplanning/https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100086096088113https://www.linkedin.com/company/elite-collegiate-planning/Visit us online:https://elitecollegiateplanning.com/https://collegeknowledge.net/

In this episode of the College Knowledge podcast, sponsored by the College Planning Network and Paradigm Financial Group, Dave & Joe interview Bill Priestley from Dream Job Factory, who shares his personal journey of pursuing his dream of becoming an NCAA Division 1 sportscaster and how he now helps others achieve their dream job.Bill discusses his formula for finding one's dream job - Interest (I) + Ability (A) + Audience (U) = Dream Job, emphasizing the importance of passion, purpose, and exposure to different career paths from an early age. He also highlights the significance of making careful job choices based on long-term goals and interests rather than location, money, and benefits to avoid burnout.Bill also stresses the importance of managing expectations, having a solid game plan, and doing due diligence to achieve goals and find the right fit in terms of education and career opportunities.This insightful conversation provides valuable tips and insights for students, parents, and anyone looking to discover their dream job and succeed in their career.Join us in this College Knowledge podcast episode to learn how to find your dream job and make it a reality. Follow us on social media:https://www.instagram.com/elitecollegiateplanning/https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100086096088113https://www.linkedin.com/company/elite-collegiate-planning/Visit us online:https://elitecollegiateplanning.com/https://collegeknowledge.net/

Lisa Marie Presley's funeral was yesterday, General Mills introducing Cinnamon Toast Crunch Bugles, COPCK, Steve found a fun fact about Han Zimmer

In this bonus episode, Joe answers 12 days of college questions!

In this episode of College Knowledge, Dave & Joe go in depth about 529 plans and how,  although they have been around for a long time, there are still a lot of common misconceptions about 529 plans. Dave & Joe help explain that 529's are a financial planning vehicle, and not a one size fits all plan for everyone. 

Kap & J. Hood Producer Shea Norling AKA Snorling takes you through the official start of college football from his sports betting perspective every Thursday on the Kap & J. Hood podcast!

The boys are back to review a college orientation video about horses and what to do when you encounter one wearing a hat. Greg and Henry mourn the tragic loss of Kyle. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/cineplex-podcast/support

Author Melanie Jones Gast discusses her article, "Reconceptualizing College Knowledge: Class, Race, and Black Students in a College-Counseling Field," published in the January 2022 issue of Sociology of Education.

College Knowledge Month Continues with PTCC Director of Student Affairs Kierstan Peck. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/wcmp-news/message

College Knowledge Month with PTCC's Laura Berg --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/wcmp-news/message

College Knowledge Month with PTCC's Jen Rancour. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/wcmp-news/message

PTCC President Joe Mulford stops by the morning show to talk about College Knowledge Month. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/wcmp-news/message

We are joined this episode by Lande Ajose, chair of the Governor’s Council for Postsecondary Education - a big job as California colleges prepare to reopen campuses to students post-pandemic. Ajose helped prepare the recently-released "Recovery With Equity" roadmap for California’s postsecondary systems to come back from the pandemic more financially resilient and positioned to more equitably serve California students. Also: the plight of the adjunct professor, the difficulties of getting accepted to college, and the importance of "College Knowledge" in a community. Plus: The #WorstWeekCA!

Petty Officer First Class Michael Carlin is a recruiter in the U.S. Navy. He explains the process of joining the Navy for high-school graduates, college students, and college graduates, discusses the challenges and rewards that come with Navy life, and describes life aboard a U.S. naval vessel. Thank you for joining us.

“Pay attention. Prepare for the heart to heart college money talk.” - Haruka YamashitaIn this episode of Get Ready, I spoke with Haruka Yamashita, Founder of Plan-It-Education about what College Knowledge you need to know to make the best college admission decisions.  We also discussed the “College Knowledge with Haruka YouTube series”.Bio: Haruka Yamashita is a college admissions counselor, based in the San Francisco East Bay. She founded Plan It Education in 2016 and has hosted College Knowledge Webinars since 2020.  Haruka is a graduate of Cornell University with a B.S. in Human Development and Family Studies. She brings a passion for working with youth and counseling to her practice.  She shares unique insights as a result of her own Ivy League education.  Her mission is to inspire, motivate and educate families so that they can make the best college admissions decisions. In 2020, she launched College Knowledge Webinars and her YouTube Channel: College Knowledge with Haruka. 

Chefredakteur Siro quizzt sich mit sechs College-Spielerinnen aus dem Projekt #TTGNextGenUS durch die US-Historie, -Geographie und den nordamerikanischen (Hochschul-) Basketball. In insgesamt vier Runden unterzieht er die Teilnehmerinnen (und das deutsche Bildungssystem) einer harten Probe. Wer darf sich am Ende die Rätselkrone aufsetzen? Findets raus! _____________________________ Für mehr Infos und Bonus-Content checkt unsere WEBSITE. Alle Hörmöglichkeiten und Social-Media-Links findet ihr HIER. Tauscht euch mit uns und anderen aus - im FORUM. Wir freuen uns riesig über eine Bewertung bei iTUNES.  ...

Chefredakteur Siro quizzt sich mit sechs College-Spielerinnen aus dem Projekt #TTGNextGenUS durch die US-Historie, -Geographie und den nordamerikanischen (Hochschul-) Basketball. In insgesamt vier Runden unterzieht er die Teilnehmerinnen (und das deutsche Bildungssystem) einer harten Probe. Wer darf sich am Ende die Rätselkrone aufsetzen? Findet’s raus! _____________________________ Für mehr Infos und Bonus-Content checkt unsere WEBSITE. Alle Hörmöglichkeiten und Social-Media-Links findet ihr HIER. Tauscht euch mit uns und anderen aus - im FORUM. Wir freuen uns riesig über eine Bewertung bei iTUNES.

Dave shares some exciting news about the future of the podcast. Thank you for joining us.

Kayla Goida is a Marketing Associate with Abbvie Pharmaceuticals. She worked for Abbvie during the summer between her Junior and Senior years at West Chester University, and earned a full-time role at the company after graduation. She discusses the awareness she gained during her internship, explains how she secured her full-time position, and shares what her experience starting a career in a new city during the Coronavirus lock-down has taught her. Thanks for joining us.

Clay Kovatch studied abroad in Cairo during the summer between his Junior and Senior years at Flagler College, and Jackson Friedman studied abroad in Barcelona during the fall semester of his Junior year at the University of Pittsburgh. They compare and contrast their experiences, and discuss some of the highlights of each of their trips. Thank you for joining us.

Staff Sergeant Keith Logan is the Recruiting Station Commander for the U.S. Marine Corps in Downingtown, Pennsylvania. He shares some of his experiences serving at home and abroad, explains how the Marines can help make college more affordable, and outlines why joining the Marines can be a great alternative to a four-year college degree. Thanks for joining us.

Allen Berry played Division 1 baseball at Davidson College and Julia Berry was a swimmer at Division 3 Albright College. They compare and contrast their experiences playing sports in college, explain how they balanced athletics with academics, and discuss their future plans beyond sports. Thanks for joining us.

In today's podcast Lucy, Michelle, Lauren, and Angie discuss their college expectations and experiences. Along the way, they reflect on the lessons they've learned and how they're managing to survive college without each other. PERIODT. Follow us on Instagram! @byobreakfast Contact Information: byobreakfast@gmail.com

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 types of things. And yes, there are there are times when we may need to be more firm than others and sometimes we don't necessarily have time to stop and give a lesson on how a blind person is able to do things, but but it does happen, and it can be a great opportunity for us to share our insights and to educate people so that the next blind person that comes along, that that person will know better how to help them.  Another thing that I told this particular person after I had explained to him how a blind person crosses a street, I said you may come across a blind person that needs help sometime, and when you do that, this is the appropriate way to to address it. You ask them if they need help and how they can best help them, and that would be more appropriate than than going up and grabbing the person's arm without any introduction. So it was a very positive experience for all of us, but there have been other times where I know I haven't always reacted the best way in public situations. And I think we probably all have done that or not not acted appropriately. Sometimes, as Bryan said, our emotions can get in the way. So I think it is very important to try to approach these situations in an objective way and to remember that in all these types of situations, or most of them, people have our best interests at heart even if they are misguided about how to appropriately address them and what our best interest might be,  so it's an opportunity for us to educate, and I think that's really important. We will talk a little bit more about different scenarios later, but I think there is one other type of advocacy that we haven't quite gone over yet. We are going to have Rashad address it. Rashad, what are some other ways other situations where we might be in where we would advocate? Rashad Jones: Well, you know what there are a lot of different situations, so like Bryan said, it's very important to be prepared when it comes to interacting in those professional situations. I can attest that I have gone through something like that, and he's absolutely right about how the emotions can get in the way and then how did you end up having to really you feel like you have to just do whatever they've said because you didn't know going into the situation what it would be like. So you end up having to follow whatever they say without very much input, so that's one reason why it's very important to do that. And then as Rachel was talking about in a public setting, that's always, you know, you come up with a million and one different time where things have gone right or things have been like, “What in the world just happened?”  One thing that really here's something a lot of people may or may not think about is that you even have to advocate sometimes amongst your family and your friends, and this can sometimes be some of the most challenging territory to navigate through because these are the people who know you the best. They've known you the longest, so they've seen you at various levels of your life and sometimes in the case of family members, particularly, they see you at a younger level so they don't always, they may not always value as an adult, as a young adult or wherever you currently are and what you're capable of. So it could be really easy for them to kind of trivialize what you are able to do and what you're capable of. So, we're going to talk about this type of thing in specifics and greatest specifics kind of an review later, but I can think of several times where family members have played video games and things like that, and I haven't been able to do that, because it wasn't accessible or there hadn't been much thought, or it had just been automatically assumed. Anyway, and these are people who genuinely, generally want to include me, but you know there there is the occasion where they're playing something, and it doesn't help too that I'm not very up on what's all out there, although I'm learning that there are games and things like that in, and ways that accessibility has been incorporated, but at the time I didn't know.  I just automatically assumed from what my brothers and other family members were doing that it just wasn't very accessible anymore. And they are so involved at so many different levels to these games and stuff like that as far as they become so much more sophisticated. So I just thought it was just out of my league, beyond of my reach, so I would just sit there if there was a gathering or something like that, or if they were playing a card game or something like that, I would make mention of the fact that there were Braille cards and things for certain things, but I just didn't know where to turn. So even in these situations, I was there. I was able to enjoy myself somewhat. There was food and drink and snacks and things like that available, but you know when you don't take the time to think about these things, then you can really get a very big disadvantage.  My family and I get together as much we can. We find an excuse to get together and celebrate. I think one Thanksgiving was when I really found out that they were willing to be accommodating. They were playing this game called Taboo. It's one where it's a card game, for those of you who are familiar or those of you who aren't, it's an awesome game. I love it. It has a phrase or word on it and then below it the line that separates that term from the terms that the person who's giving the hints and stuff cannot say when they're trying to get you to understand what it is, the rest of people on the team. I remember it was so funny. It was perfect timing. I walked into the house, to my aunt's house, and they were trying to get the word “daredevil” and they were talking about the guy in the movie, and how he moved around and did stuff really fast. Or they talked about just different things, you know, maybe the guy couldn't see. It's safe to say I haven't watched the movie, but the point is that they were throwing out clues, and I said, oh my Gosh, I know this one, I know this one! And then after nobody on the team got it, since I was just a late coming to the game, and I was like, I know what it is! It's “daredevil!” And they were like, “You could play this game.” So it was instantly, one of those situations where me just being willing to participate and having that familiarity with my family, where it was really helpful. So it worked out and then so every time we play a game, they often think about how they can include me. Because we don't have stuff in Braille most of the time. It's just whichever game my family member happens to bring with them. But they've been really good about it, but it's just because I was willing to say, “Hey, I wish I could play” or “Is there a way that we can make it work so that I can enjoy too?” or asking that question that may feel uncomfortable and may feel like you're nagging, but you know the squeaky wheel gets the oil or however that phrase goes. But you know you have to really put yourself out there even amongst your friends and your family members to just say I would love to be included and here is what has worked for me in the past. So you being willing to present some possible solutions and things like that can really help them out. Rashad Jones: So that's really what I have on that one. And this really brings me to a great question that I want to get you guys to chime in on: How do y'all think you can, you should be advocating for yourself and the things that you need, without putting anybody else out. Without alienating somebody or putting them on the defensive? What do you all think about that? Bryan Duarte: Rachel, why don't you chime in first and then I'll follow up after you. But how do you feel about how to do this? Rachel Grider: I think it's important to remember that most of the time, it's just that they don't know. They just don't know how to include you or how to make those accommodations for you.  So I think if you approach in with that mindset, from an objective mindset, and say, okay. You know, I'm going to teach this person, rather than just be aggressive and try to get my way. I think that really helps. So using those moments to educate, and I like Rashad's example of being able to jump in and just start doing. Sometimes you don't even need to say,”this is how I'm going to do it.” Sometimes you just need to do it. I've had many situations where I've done that, where you just jump in and do it. I think that's really the main thing, and also not taking certain things personally. Like in Bryan's example in his meeting. If you're not getting the accommodations that you need for school, it's not personal. It's not something personal to you. I mean, it is because you feel like it is, but they're not sitting around saying, “You know, I don't care about this person. We're not going to accommodate this person.” They're not doing that. They just don't know how to best help you, and so it's your job to teach them. So don't take things personally. Figure out solutions and have the solutions in your mind, how you're going to do it. And if someone asks you how you're going to do something, and if you don't know the answer, then tell them, “I'm not sure yet, but I'm going to find out.” And do your research. Use your network. Talk to your friends and colleagues who have done these things before. Bryan Duarte: That is really great.  That is a spot on, the best approach. I remember back shortly after that semester, maybe even the very next semester, I really gained a lot of knowledge from that meeting and that preparation and being able to advocate for myself. And so what I ended up doing was going kind of a step beyond that, and I said hey, that seemed to work with all of those people, that professor. Maybe I can try to build what I call a working relationship with my professors. Maybe I don't even need to go up as high as that, and so what I started doing was I started attending office hours. I started sticking around after class. I started talking to the professors one-on-one. I started brainstorming with them. I looked at the syllabus ahead of time, and I would say, oh look. We have this big project and it seems to be a project that you can very well look at, I mean it's software engineering, so yeah there's going to be a very heavy visual component of this. How am I supposed to do that? Instead of going into his office and throwing it on the ground and being like, “You know what? You need to change this! This isn't right. I'm going to go to the ADA,” or something. I went in there and I said, “Hey, you know, Professor, I can see that we're going to have this big project coming up and I'm just wondering, do you think it's possible for me to develop something similar but without such a visually intensive component of it? And you know, this is what I was thinking.” Like you just said, Rachel, have done your research and really understand, like prepare for what you're trying to do, and develop that working relationship. And so I would go in there and say, “Hey, you know, I see this is going to be a part of it. What if I did it this way?” You know, really think about, I can meet those requirements of this assignment by doing it this way. And then you start brainstorming with them and then they get engaged and say look, he's not trying to skirt the system. He's trying to learn in his way. He's trying to do this the way that he can. That really helped and I think probably the whole rest of my educational career ,I pretty much handled most all of my accommodations directly with the professor. Because I had built working relationships with all of them, every single semester. So that's big.  Bryan Duarte: How do you meet with people without alienating them? I really think you hit it on the head right, you you just have to be willing to understand that they're not doing it in spite of you. They're not doing it to attack you. They're not doing it because they don't want to. They could just be doing what they're doing because they don't know. And you have to approach it in that way like, hey, are they really trying to do this against me? Or do they not know? Maybe I need to teach them. Maybe I need to show them what is possible. And I say this, and I mean it. I say it all the time: it's one thing for you to be laughing with me. It's a different thing for you to be laughing at me. And in the same way, you've got to approach these situations with that same kind of mindset, where are they trying to help me and they don't know how? Or are they really not trying to me at all? And so when we think about it in that way, you can approach it with a different mindset, like Rachel said.  Rashad Jones: If I could, you know those are great points that both of you made in terms of how to do this, because it can be tricky. I can personally say that I was somebody who it took a long time for me to get that I had to be organized enough to start advocating for myself in college myself, because I'd been so used to doing, to having it done for me, prior to going into college. So making sure that I had those course registration numbers and the ISBNs for each book, and emailing the professors. I know this wasn't necessarily in my area of expertise to cover earlier but just in the general discussion, sometimes it takes people like me awhile to get it through my head that if I don't wanna go through it being my fault that something wasn't in place, then I've got to make sure that I do this. And so for me, I will say that there were times where I seriously and to this day question how much some of those professors were actually looking out for me as much as they were trying to cover their own skins, so unfortunately you will run into that sometimes. It's not always the case, so I recognize that now. Rachel Grider: Very true. Rashad Jones: Whether or not you think they're trying to help you or they're out to get you, you want to be prepared. You want to put your best foot forward so that even if they are trying to get you they won't get you this time because you were prepared, and you emailed them and you were able to copy everybody to the emails so they saw that you took for the effort to take the steps that you needed to get it done. So if they tried it, I'd say, if you would refer back to my email that I sent on these dates, then you'll see where I made the effort. I did what was asked of me and so it's at that point it's up to the University or the people to make it happen. It's not on your plate. Just in a broader sense, I just wanted to say that you know, I definitely felt what you were saying about being in a position. Feeling like you're not in power because you don't have things in place or you don't have anybody on your side. Sometimes it's because they're trying to help you and you're not prepared and sometimes it's because they don't really want to do it in the first place. So you will run into both definitely. Bryan Duarte: Let me just say that accountability part is critical. It is crucial. It is essential to anything and it's not always a “refer back to my email” because you're trying to throw it in their face. Sometimes it's just a good way of finding, even yourself, what did we talk about? That's actually really good thing that you brought up, Rashad. I remember when I started kind of advocating for myself and learning, one of the things that I learned early on was a paper trail goes a long way. So whenever I would have in-person meetings I would leave that meeting and go directly to my computer and I would send an email: “Hey, I just wanted to follow up on that. You know we talked about this; you said you were gonna do this; I'm gonna take care of these things, and we're going to meet next week. Have a great day. Talk to you next week.” And once that paper trail is laid, it's really an accountability piece. I really like that you brought that up, so it's a really good strategy to follow up meetings like that, in person meetings, like that. Again, it's not always that you're going to throw it in their face later. It's also just a really good reminder for yourself as well as to who's doing what when is it going to be done by, because you know you're not the only student they're working with. So it's important to keep that in mind.  Bryan Duarte: But real quickly I wanted to throw another kind of question out there for us all to tackle real quick. And I know Rachel that you had a kind of different view on this, and I think both views are important from my view, so maybe we can talk about this. When is it a good time to advocate for yourself? Or when is it a good time to ask for help? And I think that keyword there is asking for help. So why don't you start off and talk about how you think of asking for help, and then I'll jump in and talk about it from my perspective. Rachel Grider: Okay, so that's such a great question because I feel like a lot of times when we think of being independent, sometimes we think that independence means that we have to do everything on our own. So, we have to have all of our skills in place and everything, and we don't need help from anybody! We can be islands! But people aren't islands. We are all interdependent on each other to some degree or other, whether you're blind or sighted or whatever. That's just how it is as members of the human race. So there are times, I think, that you know we may need to ask for help, and everybody is different. In terms of you know, I know Bryan you're going to speak to the educational aspect in a minute, but in terms of just, say, mobility is an example. A lot of us are at different levels when it comes to how you, being able to travel from point A to point B independently. So if I'm in an airport, my personal preference is use IRA (?)  to get around, but there could be someone who maybe needs more hands-on help, and that is totally okay. So if you feel like there may be, if someone feels like they want to be able to be more independent, they may need to ask for help to learn how to be independent traveling, and that's okay. I think that we're all at different levels, and when it comes to, in a situation where, say you're at a job interview and you're asked a question. You know, how are you going to be able to do this job? Maybe you didn't prepare for that question, so it's best to have prepared for that question and to be able to answer that question, so we also hopefully you already know the answer to that or have had ideas, but ideally what you could do is you could ask for help from someone who has done this job before. Use your network. We all have great networks. I mean, we're representing Learning Ally, and if you're listening to this podcast, you probably either work with a mentor or you've used some of the other resources of Learning Ally. There is a plethora of blind and visually impaired people who are, who work here and also who are students. Being able to depend on each other in a way that does not take away your independence, but it enriches it, enhances your independence and enriches it. And I think that's when it's really absolutely okay to ask for help and to say, you know I don't know how to do this on my own right now, at least not yet, but I need help learning how to do it on my own. Rashad Jones: Absolutely. Bryan Duarte: Absolutely, and there's so many good points you've just made right there. Yeah and I really agree, and I think it is so important that we hear that perspective of getting help. When I think about getting help or asking for help, I tend to think about it in a more rigorous way, and both of them are applicable. You need to know when you're in a situation for both. So the way that I look at getting help or asking for help is, the situation I gave with my professors and I was able to develop a working relationship with them, and then I didn't really have to go to the Disability Center or my DSO all the time. And I definitely don't have to go to the Director of the Disability Services, and I didn't have to go to the Dean all the time. That is one ideal situation right? It's not always going to be like that, as Rashad pointed out. Sometimes you're going be faced with adversity. They're not going to budge. I'm sure one if not all of us have had that situation where the professor just wasn't willing to do anything. They wanted to teach the class, and they wanted to go. They did not want to take any time to work with you. They didn't want to take any time to make things accessible. And in that situation, what do you do?  So when I think about asking for help, you need to know your chain of command. You have to understand where your network is and how to use them. So my professor. I would talk to them. Let's say they weren't willing to work with me. Okay, well, then now I need to go to the Disability Center. I need to go ask the Disability Center. Hey, Such and such class has this going on. The professor isn't able or isn't willing to get it for me I need to have the disability center convert this for me. Now let's say for example the Disability Center says, you know what? We don't have the time, the resources, or the money to be able to convert that for you. Okay, well that's not my problem. Now it's a bigger problem. So now I need to go ask the Director of the Disability Center, “Hey, your DSO said that they weren't able to do this for me, that they didn't have enough funding.” “Oh, well it's true. We don't have enough funding.” Well, guess what I gotta do now? Now I have to go above their head. So really what I'm trying to get at here is sometimes asking for help is knowing who to involve next and how to do it, still navigating it along that line of being appropriate and effective. So if you go to the Disability Center then to the Advisor Supervisor and then possibly the Dean, eventually you're going to get what you mean because you know the chain of command and how to ask for it appropriately.  Rachel Grider: So I think there's also important, I think what you said is spot on. But I would, that's a situation where you may also need to take some of that responsibility on yourself. For example, okay so I'm in a situation that was similar kind of to what you described. I was in grad school and I had a large or part of the book that I needed to be transcribed. and I needed it by a certain date, and my DSO was not able to get it done. And I was I was doing exactly what Bryan, what you were saying, but there wasn't time, you know, because the date was coming and coming. And I couldn't get it resolved. There was no way I would be able to get it resolved in the amount of time that I needed it to be resolved, so I had to, I ended up scanning it myself so that I could do the assignment. Now I suppose I could have asked for an extension, but I wanted to get it done. I knew it would be a lot more stress later on, so for that particular situation, I had to find that balance. Okay yeah, that is their responsibility, but I still need to be responsible and get this done. And I still of course pursued it, and I still wanted to make sure because I also had to think of the future. I didn't want this to happen to me again. I didn't want to spend a whole Saturday night scanning a book using ???? because that was a long night. It wasn't something I wanted to have to do again. I think finding that being able to find other ways around some of these barriers we may face is also very important. Okay, go ahead Rashad. Bryan Duarte: I think that's a great thing before Rashad goes, that is a very, very key thing that neither of us really touched on, so I'm glad you brought that up. Asking for help is one thing, and knowing when to ask for help with another point. But understanding your chain of command is just as important as being effective and appropriate in it. But there's still one other component and that component is, do I need to just tie up my boot straps and do this myself? That is amazing. And there's one thing that I think it can be said for most all individuals who have a visual disability is they are problem solvers.  Rachel Grider: Yes, they are! Bryan Duarte: I worked with a person just the other day on a software. He wanted me to do a user study for him. And he said you know I've never seen people who have such a desire and such an aptitude to finding work arounds. I know, I never thought about that, but it's true. We find ways and that is a very, very important thing, and don't lose that, but understand that it might take you a whole Saturday late night doing it yourself, but you'll get it done, versus it could take you a month or two to get it done the other way. Sometimes you need to buckle up your bootstraps. Other times you just need to ask. So very, very good, very important question. Rashad, did you have something to add to the question? Rashad Jones: Yeah, really what you have said is very important to remember to keep in mind. You guys covered everything, and just in thinking about how else a situation like that could be covered. A pro tip: something that I've done several times, was I went to, since I was a music student, I went to the music library and I had a music librarian help me when it came to having text and things like that scanned because I didn't have the technology to do it on my own, and I didn't know how to do it. So it's working those networks. I think we may have covered that in a podcast episode, but the thing is being willing to reach out, and actually taking the step of asking for help is so important because sometimes you just need it. Sometimes you need help. To me there's no shame in asking for help. You put yourself back, you set yourself back when you're in need of something and you don't ask because you're trying to struggle and do it on your own. And you may not be successful in certain situations. But I would just say a general rule of thumb is if it's something that is within your reach, or your ability then you should do it for yourself because you get a greater sense of accomplishment when you do it that way. And then if there's something that you just cannot do on your own, and there's no time, and you need the help, then help is there, and you should not feel bad about asking for help, if you've done all that you can. Because you don't want to become that person that seems like they can't do anything by themselves but by the same token, I think that we need to realize that even people who don't have disabilities need help sometimes. I mean I didn't build the townhouse that I'm living in, nor the shoes that I'm wearing, so we all have to have that sense of like Rachel said, interdependence to a certain degree, so just knowing that and really being a willing participant in your education inside the classroom and outside. It's so important. Rachel Grider: So, the mentors have come up with some great situations we've all most likely been in or are heading for. We would like to chat about a couple of them on this podcast, and we'll definitely be revisiting the topic in the fall because, like it or not, advocacy is going to be, or is already a constant for us. So we're going to start with Bryan for the first situation. Bryan Duarte: Nice. So let's talk about a situation that I think most all of us should or have already interacted with. And that is inaccessible handouts. How are we going to approach this? So here's the scenario: you receive an email from your professor you open the file and your screen reader just does not read it. It's a PDF, and it is inaccessible. What do you do? Do you: A) decide to ignore the email because your professor wasn't able to create an accessible handout?  B) Do you send an angry email to your DSO demanding that they transcribe it because your professor did not create it accessible to begin with. C) Have your roommate read the document to you because your professor isn't responsible for Accessibility. D) Explain why you weren't able to do the excitement next time you have class. (I think I said excitement, but it's really assignment.) E) Do you use technology to try to convert the file and send an email to your professor and the DSO explaining the situation. Bryan Duarte: So I'm going to ask you two to give me what you think. If you need me to repeat any of these, definitely let me know, but how would you approach something like this where you have an inaccessible file? Rachel Grider: Bryan, I thought I was done with school and that I wouldn't have to take anymore quizzes! What is up with this? Just kidding. So I think for me, what I would do, there are definitely different ways. I think it's important to realize that we all have choices in how to respond to these different scenarios and those choices will come with varying results. So I decide to ignore the email --what would happen? I mean what do you guys think would happen? Would the problem go away?  Bryan Duarte: Definitely not. Rachel Grider: What would the professor think of me? Definitely not, right? So if I sent an angry email to my DSO demanding that the professor be educated about the Accessibility and I mean that would probably not be..., it would probably get the job done, right? So could I do that?  Rashad Jones: You could do that. Should you? I don't think you should though. Rachel Grider: Probably not. Probably wouldn't give the best side impression. I suppose I could have my roommate read the assignment to me, but you know and I could get it done, but then do we think my roommate would want to do that every time I get an inaccessible assignment?  Rashad Jones: Nope! Rachel Grider: Probably not. I could be a victim and explain why I, poor me, couldn't do the assignment. Probably wouldn't be a good idea either. So what I think would be the better solution or at least the solution that would produce the best results? I can try to use my technology or if there's time, you know get DSO to make this file accessible for me, and I would maybe go and talk to my professor or send an email to my professor and ask, explain, ask if I could possibly have it in a different format next time. And either that, if this professor refuses to help me even after I've explained the situation, then I suppose I would have to work out with my DSO how they can make things accessible for me in the future. Bryan Duarte: Absolutely, and I think that what I'm hearing is you're probably leaning towards E: try to take matters into your own hands. You're going to see if you can do it through assistive technology, trying to convert the file, and you're going to email simultaneously to your professor and the DSO to let them know about it, and hopefully they can get things rectified for the future, and that is the way. Although, I do agree with you that it might be tempting to send that angry email. That's definitely not the most appropriate or most effective way of handling this situation.  Rashad Jones: Right, I think that's true. You could be tempted, especially if you've faced something like this before, if it's from the same professor or something like that. But the thing is this too. A lot of times the people who work for the DSO, they know some of the professors and they know how some of them operate. So some of them are really good about accessibility and accommodations, and then some of them are not. So sometimes they're not unknown entities,  then they'll have something in place. So it's a good idea to follow up with that email like Bryan said between yourself, the professor, and the DSO just so that you have that trail and just so that everybody's on the same page. Rachel Grider: Yes, having the records is very important. Having the paper trail as Bryan mentioned earlier.  Bryan Duarte: So Rachel, what do you have for us? Rachel Grider: All right. So I have “Service to Humanity!” All right. Scenario number 2. You hear that during the COVID-19 crisis, hospitals are short on blood. You have been responsibly social distancing for two weeks, and you've given blood before, so you should qualify again. But when you show up to the Blood Bank, a frazzled staff member sees your cane and says, “Um, I don't really know how I'm going to lead you to the different stations, so I'm sorry, you can't give blood today. I'll give you a participation sticker though. So what would you do? Would you: A) Take your sticker and leave, relieved that you can at least pretend you gave blood today. B) Ask in a defiant tone to speak immediately to this person's manager, determined to show these unenlightened fools that blood is blood. C) Leave because this is a crisis situation, and they have enough to deal with. D) Politely reply that you would very much like to give blood, explain that you can follow the staff members' directions without any physical physical contact with them, and ask if they have any additional concerns.   What would you all do? Rashad Jones: I mean it's something where you really have to be diplomatic about it and say, you know I don't understand why you preventing me from doing this. This is something that I can do. I would explain to them that blood is blood, and you know I'm healthy, I meet all of the requirements, so can you give me a reason as to why you don't want me to do this? Sometimes having them provide you an answer will help you and then if that doesn't work, if they're being contrary about it, then you would need to escalate the situation and say you know this is really not acceptable behavior, and you know as a citizen or as as a concerned volunteer, I'm going to have to speak to someone above you about this because... Rachel Grider: Well now, the Blood Bank person has already said that they don't think that they should take you because they can't lead you to the stations without violating social distancing.  So how would you respond to that, if they said that to you? Rashad Jones: Well, then hopefully, you have a cane or if you're a guide dog user, you have that, and so you could tell them they can verbally give you cues as to which way to go as they lead you, something like that. That's just off the cuff what I'm thinking. Rachel Grider: Yeah. So you're going with D. Okay, so I have a follow up question for either of you. What if you're comfortable taking verbal directions and following, then that is the solution. Now what if though, what if you're not? If you don't feel comfortable with that. How would you address that issue? What do you think you would do? Rashad Jones: I don't know. This is a tough one. I'm sorry, Bryan? Bryan Duarte: I was going to say what you said, we'd be getting into deeper woods there, because you could argue that maybe the person needs training. They should be able to take directions verbally or in any other way. I don't think that going in and expecting someone to give you human guide assistance here is always the right choice. In that situation, I would argue that maybe the individual should maybe just say, I'll come back with a family member, and they can lead me around or come up with a different situation. Because it probably isn't fair for them to break social distancing rules on your behalf because you aren't trained. Rachel Grider: That's an excellent thought. So you're actually saying that the person would go back and ask for help from a family member, and maybe with the ultimate goal of eventually having the skills that they can navigate the Blood Bank or wherever on their own with verbal directions.. Rashad Jones: Right. And it did make me wonder how the person got there in the first place, so that might one of the cases where… Rachel Grider: Took Uber! Rashad Jones: Right, right if they took Uber, but then they had to get into the building. But I mean, this could happen, it certainly could. Rachel Grider: And some of you who may have multiple disabilities in addition to blindness, other disabilities in addition to blindness, may need to think outside the box of other ways, maybe discussing with a family member or friend, how you can navigate this type of situation. Because it's going to be the same for all of us. So I think trying to come up with productive, creative ways where you can still give this type of service right now during a crisis like this and do it in a safe way. So let's go to our last situation with Rashad. Our last question. Rashad Jones: All right, well here we go. This is something that most of us, or some of us at least could really identify with. Friends from school or work are going to be meeting up on Zoom for a game night, but they did not invite you because they thought that you wouldn't have fun, because the game that they're going to be playing is inaccessible. You find out that they're going to play the game at the last minute. That definitely happens. So, do you yell, “You're violating the ADA! You'll be hearing from my lawyer”? Or do you sit quietly on sidelines and hope that somebody recognizes that you're not having fun? Do you politely approach one of your friends or colleagues to see if you could talk about how to make it accessible for you? Or do you just not participate, and sit at home and cry? What do you do? Now I'll start off by saying… Rachel Grider: Aww, it's sad. Rashad Jones: It is sad. Personally, I have done the second one. I will admit to having been someone who's just sat there, like, maybe they'll notice. But that doesn't always work. Then sometimes what ended up happening with me was they realized later on, and they said something about it later on, like “dang, we just left you out. Sorry.” That happened with family one time. That's not always the best thing to do. It's a pity party. Rachel Grider: I'll admit that I've done that as well. I've done the last one too before, honestly. Maybe not stayed home and cried, but I've decided not to go, felt sorry for myself, yeah moped about it. Not very productive. Rashad Jones: Nope. Bryan Duarte: I tend to be the outspoken one by nature, so I threaten them with my lawyer. No, I don't.   Rachel Grider: I think that's a great solution! Bryan Duarte: I take the same approach that I take in other situations, but in a much different way. And sometimes humor goes a long way. Just being able to lighten the mood, or maybe being able to modify the game in some way. You pair up, and you have somebody who is on your team. Rachel Grider: That's what I usually end up doing. It's fun. It's totally fun. I think there are always ways. If they're really your friends, then they'll be more than happy to make those accommodations or maybe change, have someone pair up with you. I think it's totally fair to ask, to discuss ways to help the game be more accommodating, to accommodate you. And it's fun. You can always have fun, and sense of humor is great. I love that Bryan, what you said about having a sense of humor. Bryan Duarte: Nice. Well, I think that this has been a great discussion. Thank you both for your insightful and your transparent experiences in both situations. I think we all had fun. I know I can speak for myself that I had fun. I just want to give a special thank you to Rachel for the beginning of this idea. She wrote a nice resource that you should all go check out. You can find that through the Schoology app, or you can go to LMS.learningally.org, and you can find it on your dashboard in your courses in the Schoology app. And if you need any help, please feel free to email at csp@learningally.org. This is the end of our podcast pilot. We hope you enjoy it. We'll be back in the fall with more content, more drama, and more fun. Be sure to subscribe on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts, and be sure to tell your friends about our new adventure in creating a podcast. Rashad Jones: Before we go, we'd just like to take the time to thank our Learning Ally staff for supporting the launch of this podcast, as well as all of our funders and stakeholders for supporting all that we do. The co-hosts for College Knowledge are Rachel Grider, Bryan Duarte, and Rashad Jones. Our program director is Mary Alexander. Our podcast writer is Kristen Witucki. Abigail Shaw produced the audio for this podcast, and our social media and distribution manager, Katie Ottaggio. I'm Rashad Jones, and this is College Knowledge.

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 of complement our verbal language in that aspect?  Caitlin Mongillo: Absolutely. Bryan Duarte: Okay. And kind of the other thing that I think is really important, and Rashad and Caitlin, is what would you say about personal, and kind of boundaries, if you think about it, so you know, there is a boundary, right, you don't want to be, if, I think what we call it nowadays is being in someone's bubble, right? You don't want to be in someone's bubble when you're having these encounters. Is there like a safe distance for these conversations? If it's a busier room, do we get closer—but how close? Do we hug? Do we, you know, what is that, how do we navigate that as a blind person? Rashad Jones: Well, I would just say if I can, it's just, you really have to, I think it's best to be a little bit more professional than you might normally be. And the situation I'm thinking here of job interviews, or meeting some staff members, or professors, or things like that—people who you'll be working with in a professional capacity. So, you know, this is just where I'm coming from, but I think it's important to portray that you're a little bit more professional than you would normally be, and then allow them to, you know, give you the cue to relax a little bit. I think sometimes people start off, nowadays, some of us start off a little too personal, you know a little too informal, and while you definitely want to get to that point in some cases, it's really important to make sure that you're respecting that this is a professional situation until it's otherwise dictated or, you know, it can be kind of tricky for some people to understand those social cues and those social norms, so just thinking about those people, you know, I think that's really important to point out. Caitlin Mongillo: I agree with you. I think that, you know, a lot of times, you want to be, when you're in a business setting, you want to be more professionally-minded. And I know for me a lot of times, you know, it really depends if it's a coworker or a colleague, someone I don't know and I'm meeting for the first time, I won't ever hug them. I'll always just shake their hand. But if it's someone, you know, from a different—who works in the field, I've met maybe a couple times at conferences or at meetings or we've had some interaction and maybe they've, you know, changed jobs or something, then, you know, maybe you do hug them, but I always generally let people—other people take the lead because I don't ever want to go and go in for the hug and have them, you know, kind of not expect it. So I sort of approach it that way. And I think Bryan, your point about the bubble is really, really good, and I do find that, you know, even for myself really challenging because I can't really see at all where they are in time and space. So I know a lot of times what I'll do is, on the initial meeting when doing the handshake, I kind of try and stay in one spot unless—we're, you know, it's a, it's a—you have to move from point A to point B, because I know at least initially I was arms-length away from that other person, and that's generally a fairly socially acceptable distance to be, you know, in a professional relationship. Of course, that changes if you're in a noisy room, and maybe you have to incline your head a little bit to, you know, hear what someone's saying, but I feel like generally if you can see, or even if you can use the initial handshake to kind of gauge staying about an arm's length away from someone is generally comfortable for most people. Bryan Duarte: You know, you both kind of make me think of some things, and this is probably a little bit more along the lines of someone who's maybe not done this as often or maybe isn't kind of quite the extrovert as some of us are. But is it my responsibility to make someone comfortable with my blindness? Or is it something that, the way that I position myself and the way that I carry myself and conduct myself, will kind of make that all come together? Is that, is there something that I need to be doing or saying to make them comfortable? Can you give me some kind of feedback on that? Caitlin Mongillo: I feel like that's the one-million-dollar question, right? Rashad Jones: [Laughing]  Bryan Duarte: [Laughing] Caitlin Mongillo: You know, I feel like if there was an easy answer we'd all be really rich and a lot more comfortable probably with ourselves. Rashad Jones: Yeah. Bryan Duarte: Well I ask it as a provoking question, but I ask it from experience. Because I'll tell you, as a personal testimony if you will, when I was kind of newly blind and kind of meeting people for the first time, I always was trying to quote, unquote “prove myself,” right, prove myself as what? Well what I was trying to do, was I was trying to prove myself as a man, a father, as a person, a professional, but then to do it in such a way to where they would look past the blindness. And really what I learned over time was that they didn't need to look past the blindness, the blindness was part of me, but what they needed to see was me first. Caitlin Mongillo: Yeah, I think that's really powerful, and I know for me the job I have right now is the one that I, is my first job that I've had after graduate school, so when I started I was 24, maybe 25, I was pretty young, it was my first ever, in air quotes, “big girl job,” you know, where it wasn't like “I'm a camp counselor,” or something like that. And I kind of struggled with the same thing initially, in kind of feeling, even though I've been blind all my life, I kind of felt like meeting these new people who are all these, you know, business people and all they're going to see is, you know, my guide dog, or the fact that my eyes don't focus straight, and they're not going to listen, they're not going to see the worth in me being here, and I think it's also just even too just a matter of time and as you do it more and more and you get more comfortable, and you kind of are in these, really—let's be honest—these really challenging situations, where you know you're the new kid in the room, and you don't really know anyone, and it's mobility-wise maybe difficult, and it's all new people, and you really kind of push yourself. And I think as you do it more and more, with time you get more confident in yourself and you get more comfortable, and I know for me I would always kind of just, the mantra in my head that, you know, often at the beginning at least I kind of failed on, but over time it's gotten easier and it's like, you're meant to be here, you're supposed to be here—you can sit at this table, you can play with these people too. You have worth no matter, you know, what you are or what you're not. You're here because of your intelligence, or your job, or you know whatever, you know what you're talking about. And, you know, if all they can see is you being blind, they're missing out on a lot. So. Bryan Duarte: Absolutely. And I think that this is a topic that we could all, three probably, talk about for hours because it's very important that we do know how to conduct ourselves in a very professional matter. We're all aspiring engineers, or social workers, or lawyers, or doctors, or I mean, just anything out there, and to kind of to compete in today's market we really need to have these skills. And some people can say, “Oh well I'm blind, those don't apply to me,” but really they do, because they're really more about respect than they are anything else. So, with that being said, let's go ahead and transition into the personal networking space. So, when we talk about meeting people personally, we're not really always gonna be doing the handshake, we're not really gonna be doing eye contact as rigorous as we would in a professional setting, but there are still some key things to keep in mind, and also there's that aspect of: Where do I find these people? How do I know if they're interesting to me? And what does this setting look like? Is this something that I'm going to be doing at work? Is this in a restaurant? Do I have to go somewhere special? What does this whole thing look like? So, where are some places that I would, how do I get involved with people at a personal level? Is there a place? How do I get involved in general? Rashad Jones: Well I would say, as college students, you know, you go to your classes and things like that, and that even can be—depending on the nature of the class—you can probably find some people who you connect with on some level. Maybe who you could have lunch with, or something like that. Just by listening, and even some of the interactions you may have in some of your classes, I'm thinking here about maybe some general ed classes. I remember, one time I was in an American politics class, something like that, or it was some sort of civics class or something—anyway, political science or something—so, what was interesting to me was, so the classes can be kind of long, so, but I would have questions about certain things, and so I'd ask questions, and then there was somebody who always asked a bunch of questions or they kept on prolonging the time, so the girl behind me, I remember she was like “Oh my gosh, she's still talking,” and I'm like, “Yep, still talking,” and we struck up a pretty cool friendship for that semester. I mean, she was like my best friend in that class, because we ended up—this sounds really bad, but—we ended up complaining together about how long the class was, or how difficult it was when we didn't have really any assignments or we just had tests and things, and it was just, it was really interesting. So, we made fast friends. So just, even if you're able to pick up on some of their mannerisms and things like that and y'all share similar interests and things like that, then I think that's one way you could do it. So that was me—what about you, Caitlin, what do you think? Caitlin Mongillo: I think that's an awesome point, you know. It sounds so silly, but complaining over, mutually complaining is an awesome way to make friends. Rashad Jones: Yes, oh my gosh. Caitlin Mongillo: But I do—I know most of our listeners are maybe college students, or graduate students, and I think just looking, you know, locally, looking on your campus, normally campuses have a lot of really great either intramural sports, or clubs, or different organizations, based on a whole host of interests, from, you know, political parties that you affiliate with, to drawing, to theater, to really liking to play frisbee, to doing some kind of community service activity, or something like that. So, I would say, you know, if you're in college or in graduate school, definitely look no further than your campus community because it's one of the easiest ways to make friends is to surround yourself with people that already have something in common with you. So, when I was in college, I was an English major—I loved reading, I still love reading—so I joined the book club, you know, and that was, those were people who had an interest in common with me, even before I met them. I knew that they were going to be readers and that, you know, if nothing else, we could talk about books. And I also joined a social justice kind of club because, you know, I cared about, you know, those sorts of issues, and still do. And I had a particular community service scholarship at my school, so I had to participate in different community service events and things, so I met people through those sorts of different activities who already had, you know, some things in common to me, which is a great way. I also know that for some of our students, maybe they're commuting to school, or online college programs are now a really big thing, so something that I found really useful is using websites like Meetup—I think it's Meetup.com—where you can kind of type in interests and find groups in your area of people that could be any ages, you know, but they have all sorts of different things, like dog walking clubs, to book clubs, to square dancing clubs, to any kind of thing and it's sort of the same sort of factor of, look for people that care about the same stuff you care about. And that's, you know, I think a really good way, at least initially, of trying to meet folks that are kind of at your same level, I'd say. Rashad Jones: Yeah. Bryan Duarte: Yes, yes, indeed, and I think that you really hit on it perfectly when you just kind of said common interests brings people together, so you think about the friends that you have or that you've had, really I think what brings you together is common interests or—in Rashad's case—common differences, that you can voice together; that's, there's something really powerful about that in any relationship, and so just putting yourself out there into meetups, where you can say, “Hey, I like to go two-stepping on Tuesdays and Thursdays, maybe somebody else does as well,” right? Or, “Hey, I'm an engineer, maybe I'll find somebody who's an engineer in my classes,” right? Or, you know, just even beyond that, church is a great place—if you have a religion, finding somebody at church, getting involved with small groups at church. And joining clubs—I found that joining clubs was very powerful for me. I got involved, early on, in student government when I was an undergrad, I served on the undergraduate student government (USG), for 3 years when I was an undergrad, and I was the senate president for a while. So, getting involved at that level, you start to meet people; and you don't meet just your peers, but you meet the deans. I remember I'd have dinner and lunch and the dean actually gave me tickets to an Arizona Diamondbacks game, and it was just because we had built up that relationship through these different involvements that I was in, and then clubs. I created a club called Disabled Athletes and Allies, and it was really just geared to bring people with disabilities together with those with quote, unquote “no disabilities,” and get them involved around something like sports, or activity, working out, exercising, gardening—I created a group called Homegrown Doubles, and that was all about gardening, and again, we had equal amount of people with disabilities as people without disabilities coming and they loved it. So really just getting involved is what I'm trying to get at. I think we're, all of us are really trying to get at. Just understanding that there are differences in people­—some visual, some not visual but they're still just as important, right—culture, relationships, means you're going to have friends, you're going to have people you're going to meet, they're going to have different cultures, and in a professional setting we talk about those who may want to shake hands and those who may not want to shake hands, and that could be for a lot of reasons, knowing that there's this very big, important thing and it's gender identity, you know, understanding that somebody want to talk as a man, as a woman, or as some other gender-agnostic, if you will, identity. But being cognizant of those things and those people. Caitlin Mongillo: I think all the stuff that, Bryan and Rashad, you guys hit on, is perfect for making connections. But the one other tool that I know friends of mine have used in the past to kind of reach out and sort of form new friendships, new relationships, is actually even looking as far as social media. So, if you look on Facebook, you can find nearby events in your town, if that's a carnival or if that's some sort of chicken wing eating contest, or a concert, or something like that. And, you know— Rashad Jones: Right, definitely. Caitlin Mongillo: [Laughing] But that's a cool way, too, to find something that—even if you're not interested, it's like, well okay it's a way to get out there and even, you know, the getting out there I think is the biggest thing. Just be a little bit brave and, you know, stick yourself outside the box to meet people. They're not going to come to you, you have to kind of do your part to go to them too. Rashad Jones: And I'm really glad you said that because getting out there can be really challenging. I know for me, sometimes—believe it or not, Bryan—sometimes it was kind of something that brought me a little bit of apprehension because, on little practical things like how am I going to get there? That was always a thing. So, I think that's always something I wanted to bring up, and that's really important about making those friends and acquaintances early on, even at the classroom level, you know, finding those people, seeking them out there because that's going to be a real issue. You know, you might not know where everything is on campus, or, heaven forbid, if it's an off-campus event how are you going to get there? So, I think really doing your best to in those groups. And one group that you guys did not mention was like a music organization—I'm a little partial ‘cause that was my thing in college. As well as, I mean, on a collegiate level, in terms of the fraternity that I was a part of, am still of part of, just as an alumni now, but being involved in that. And then also, on a—from a religious standpoint, I was in a gospel choir at my college, and the thing was, I loved it because it was more than just at that time a gospel choir, it was really something where we had a bible study, and things like that, and so for me, personally, that faith-based organization was something that held a lot of importance in shaping who I am and, you know, I'm still in touch with some of those people to this day—we have had brunches and every year, excluding this new year, but on New Year's Day we always had a brunch for the past 7 or 8 years. So, you know, these are the kind of relationships that can really be long-lasting if you're willing to just step out there, even a little bit. [Silence with some interspersed words 26:59-28:36] Bryan Duarte: Absolutely, absolutely that's really good, yeah I'm glad you brought that up because there's very few things that is as close to peoples' hearts and music is definitely one of them. Music, and sports, and faith are very important things to individuals and they bring you close. So yeah, definitely. Well I think that it's a good time to segue way into romantic relationships. Now, this is going to be an interesting one. Rashad Jones: Talk about long lasting, hopefully! Bryan Duarte: We talked about long-lasting—where are you going to find one at, right? So, let's dive into this and understand that there could be some issues and tough questions that people have that otherwise they wouldn't ask in a public setting, but I think once they pop this podcast on, they're really going to find that hey, maybe we touched on some of those difficult things and they can feel free to ask questions. So, when I'm thinking of romantic relationships, that can be a boyfriend, girlfriend, that could even be something deeper when you're talking about marriage, right, and you want to start a family, and all of that. What are some ways to go about finding a romantic or intimate relationship? Do you have any ideas in that? Where would I go to find these? Is it the same, is it different, how do I conduct myself in those manners? Those are kind of the things we're going to look at. So, Caitlin, what kind of avenues, or what kind of tips can you give me in looking for a relationship that's a little bit closer than a personal one? [END silence with some interspersed words at 28:36] Caitlin Mongillo: So, I think the first thing I would say is, a lot of romantic, intimate relationships—whatever term you want to use—will actually come from, you know, a personal friendship or a shared interest first. Doesn't always, of course, mean that—they always say opposites attract—but it definitely can come from, you know, just being friends with someone. I know that my husband and I, we met in college and we were friends first—pretty tight friends for about two months before we started dating. You know, and that just came from, we had a mutual friend who introduced us—not to be, you know, boyfriend/girlfriend—but just like, “Oh, she's new and he's nice,” so, you know, it can kind of come from that. You can also find, you know, people are everywhere, people are out there. You can certainly do the online thing—you know, we'll talk about that in a little bit, but—[Laughing]—but, you know, it can come, you know, come from really anywhere. You never know when you're going to meet someone. It could be that, you know, someone in your group in class that you're working on a project with, or it could be, you know, you're walking your dog, or it could be someone that you work with, or you commute every day with. And I would just say—you know, I think I would say just be open to possibilities if you want to be in a relationship, but also I've seen people who kind of get mired in the openness to possibilities and if it's not happening on the same timeline that they'd like it to, you can get depressed, or anxious, or upset, and say, “Well what's wrong with me, why don't I have a boyfriend, why don't I have a girlfriend, why doesn't, you know, why aren't I going on dates,” and things like that, so it is—it can be discouraging. And I think I would just—I mean, it sounds maybe a little bit trite and overused—but I think there's worse to it that, it's gonna happen. You know, just like we talked about before, kind of, know your worth and that you're super awesome and, you know, someday someone will see that, but, you know, to put yourself out there, to be brave, to go on dates, to, you know, be friendly, to introduce yourself and things like that, and if it's not happening, that doesn't mean it's because you're doing something wrong. It just means it's not happening. And if you're worried you're doing something wrong, ask a friend, or ask your sister, ask your brother—“This is how I handled this situation, would you have done it differently?” Be open to that kind of feedback. Because maybe that opinion will help too. Bryan Duarte: Let me ask this question to both of you: is there a way to poise myself when I'm looking for a relationship of this type? How should I hang the flag, if you will, and say, “Hey, I want to try to date, I want to take this relationship from my music group, or my sporting group, or my meetup, to maybe the next level”? Is there a way to kind of position myself or poise myself for that? Rashad Jones: Ooh, that's a toughie. Caitlin Mongillo: [Laughing] Rashad Jones: That's a toughie—I mean, for me, college was just a very, “Hey, let's just all hang out” thing, and I didn't really—not very much, I would say—wasn't really looking for anybody in that regard. I mean, there were times where, you know, something would have been nice, but I didn't, I just didn't even focus on it because I feel that I was so lacking in that area—contrary to what people might believe about me. But it can be tough, it can really be tough, especially when we consider that, you know, I had a visual impairment, and so I'm like, “No one's going to look at me in that way,” that's just always been kind of my default when it comes to that kind of thing. So, it was actually kind of a rough one for me. Bryan Duarte: You touched on the main point of why I asked that question—"I'm blind, nobody's really going to look at me like that.” When did you find, or how did you change that. Did it happen in you, did it happen because of a friend, what really gave you that notion that, “Hey, yeah I'm blind, but that doesn't matter.” Caitlin Mongillo: I think that, for me, everything that we've kind of been talking about all centers on the same—relationships are hard. They are not easy at all. They are not easy if you're sighted, they are not easy if you're blind—any kind of relationship. But I think for me at least, I know that, you know, it's kind of all the same. I have to remember that I have worth, and that, you know, I am much more than just blind, but that's an important part of me; and I have to be okay with, you know, the facets of myself—all of them—the ones that I like, and the ones that maybe I don't like as much. And especially in regard to blindness, it's a matter of, you know, remembering, and kind of constantly reminding myself, “You have a place here—in this relationship, in this job, in this family, in this” you know, whatever it is. And there's definitely days—I've been married now for, oh gosh, almost 7 years, and there's days where… Bryan Duarte: Better not forget that! Caitlin Mongillo: Yeah better not forget that—June 8th, 2013! Rashad Jones: Okay! Bryan Duarte: Alright! Caitlin Mongillo: But there's, you know, even days where I'm just like, “God, I'm a terrible wife; if I wasn't blind, if I wasn't this, if I wasn't that, my husband would be so much happier with me.” So, everybody has crappy days, right, you have days where you just feel not okay about who you are. And that's okay to acknowledge that, too; and hopefully just learn from that and let it pass. But I think you, you know, you attract the attention that you put out. So if you, if you're interested in pursuing a romantic relationship, be a little bit confident; and even if you're not, fake it ‘til you make it, you know, put it out there like, “I'm here, I'm cool, I'm cool with who I am,” and, you know, that makes people automatically more comfortable if you seem like you're comfortable in your own skin, I think. Rashad Jones: Yeah, definitely agree with that. You know, it's about you developing that confidence. And again, I think it goes back to these social interactions and things. But really, having—making sure that you participate in that stuff is really important, ‘cause then it's not only what you do during those interactions. It's about the food that you go and have afterwards, the hangouts that you have even after the official meetings, that's really where a lot of the relationship building takes place. And I think there's a lot of potential for things to possibly escalate or go further. But another thing that Caitlin, you brought about, brought out, was just, and you guys both said this—being comfortable with who you are and all those types of things. I mean, that can be many different facets and levels and, you know, different avenues of that. You know, layers to that whole topic, but being confident in who you are can make or break you in that. So just learning to relax. And then, there's inevitably somebody who's going to take notice, and then if you notice somebody that you kind of, you know, that you think there's something there between the two of you, then building the courage to say something about it. Rashad Jones: Okay, so here we go. I've got some confidence, my friends tell me I need to do it, I'm interested in it—kind of—but let's give it a try, I want to do online dating. Have you ever done this? Is this a thing? Can blind people do that? Should blind people do that? I have friends that have done it, there's thousands of apps out there that do it, what should I do? Should I do it? Caitlin Mongillo: I know— Rashad Jones: Caitlin! Caitlin Mongillo: [Laughing] Bryan Duarte: I told you it was going to get challenging! Let's do this— Caitlin Mongillo: I know, I know! So full disclosure, I haven't dated in… Bryan Duarte: 7 years, at least! Caitlin Mongillo: Well no, 13 years actually. Rashad Jones: Okay, okay. Caitlin Mongillo: I'm an old lady. Rashad Jones: Nah! Caitlin Mongillo: And, [Laughing]. So, when I started dating, my husband—who was then my boyfriend—online dating wasn't really a thing, we had like OkCupid and eharmony and stuff, so I never actually used them because I wasn't, when I started dating him, I wasn't really looking for a boyfriend, I was just kind of having fun and being 18. But I definitely think, you know, it's the wave of the future, right? There's, like you said Bryan, and you're right, there's hundreds and hundreds of apps, and I think you're mileage is gonna vary, certainly, because a lot of them are very—what would you call it—picture-based, maybe, you know, so maybe from what I've talked to, you know, my girlfriends who might be visually impaired, or blind, you know, being really cognizant of, you know, you being able to write your profile on your own, even if you can't type it into your iPhone and you want to have your friend, or your sister, or your, you know, whoever, your coworker, whatever it might be, someone that you feel tight to, and that you know is gonna help represent you, even if you're not typing it in yourself but they're doing it, know what you want to say, have it be your words. Bryan Duarte: Absolutely. Caitlin Mongillo: But then also too, you know, if you're curious, you start connecting with a guy or a girl and you want to know what they look like, and that's okay. We're curious even if we can't necessarily be vain in the same definition so, you know, go back to that friend like, “Hey!” Bryan Duarte: Who says?! It's all about equality, right?! Caitlin Mongillo: Exactly! You know, like “Hey! What's his look like? Does he have long blonde hair? Does he look like a surfer? Maybe she's a goth, or maybe, you know, he's a punk or, you know, punk rock kind of style, or she's really short, he's really tall,” and, you know, if that matters to you, awesome, and if it doesn't, awesome. But, you know, I don't think that's a bad thing to kind of have an idea of what the person looks like, you know, because everybody else gets that feedback too. So I think it's okay to know and ask. Bryan Duarte: Well before I give my personal story, Rashad—do you have a personal story from this online dating thing? Or do you have a perspective of it? Caitlin Mongillo: [Laughing] Rashad Jones: Whew—boy, oh gosh— Bryan Duarte: Just calling you out— Caitlin Mongillo: On the money, Rashad— Rashad Jones: Yeah, you definitely are. Okay, so online dating, these apps—I really believe that you should exercise a lot of caution and common sense when you go on these things. According to “research,” of course y'all understand that. You know, “research suggests” that just because these are applications—dating applications—you still should probably, may want to think about how you present yourself on them. I mean, ooh—a lot of good can come from them. You know, if you're looking for a casual hookup. But it can also be a situation where people, number one are like, you know, “What are you doing on this app? What's wrong with you?” They'll look at your physical appearance, and there are a lot of ignorant people. So, when you get on these apps you're not necessarily going to be finding people who are understanding of people who have disabilities. So that's something that you have to really be ready for. I remember on one app, I posted a picture of myself, and I took a picture of myself and they're like, “What's wrong with you?” or, you know, I mean, you can get some really negative feedback from some people. That's not the majority, now let me make that clear, that's not the majority. “The research” indicates that it's not the majority. But you know, you might find one or two people who have a negative view of people who have disabilities, or just are very ignorant, and don't understand, and aren't looking to understand. So in those instances I would say, yeah I would say it's rough, again, but you have to breathe, and then come back to it later, and figure out, you know, how you want to present yourself. And then, when you do that, you know, be very cautious about how you interact with these people. I mean meetups, and things, are pretty cool; but you know, you're taking a chance, I would say, that you might not necessarily take in a more traditional setting, depending on what you're looking for—I'll put it to you like that. And then, if you're not, if you're too open, if you're too willing to / eager to have somebody, you know, and this can be in a traditional setting too, but I'm thinking of “research” (ahem) and— Caitlin Mongillo: [Laughing] Bryan Duarte: [Laughing] Rashad Jones: —okay, stuff that maybe I've encountered, and then, you know, stuff that you watch on things like 90 Day Fiancé, for instance. You just—the world is an interesting place, and I'm not saying don't use them, ‘cause then, you know, the “researchers” and the other participants might think that I'm being a hypocrite. But what I am saying is— Caitlin Mongillo: [Laughing] Rashad Jones: [Laughing]—what I am saying is, this is a different time than, you know, your aunts, uncles, parents—certainly. So, I mean we're going to be out there a little bit, you know, so try to have somebody you trust—like look at the pictures; number one to be like, “Hey, what do you think about this person?” You know. Bryan Duarte: Safety first, safety first, I think. Caitlin Mongillo: Absolutely. Bryan Duarte: Let me ask you this question; let me ask you this question; I've got a question for you. How about this—do I tell people I'm blind on my profile? Caitlin Mongillo: Ooh, good question. Bryan Duarte: Do I just post a picture? Do I just write this awesome blog, this little post about me, and how I love to go hiking every Thursday ‘cause “research says” that everybody likes to hike? And “research also says” that everybody likes long walks on the beach and candlelit dinners, right? If I put that on my profile, and I don't say I'm blind, when do I tell them I'm blind? Is that something that you can, that you've got some feedback on? I know my experience but let me ask you all first and then we'll move onto the next two kind of little points I want to bring up. Rashad Jones: Good question, that's a great question.  Well personally, I do not have it in a profile. So, I will just wait until I make a connection with somebody, and then I'll mention it in my personal introduction, you know, and then at that point, I let them know, you know, I have this visual impairment. But, I also went to college, have a degree, work three jobs, you know what I mean. And maybe that's the wrong approach—I don't know; you know, because it's kind of like, the blindness maybe in some way in my mind is like a nuisance to somebody. It could be a deterrent. So, since I know, I guess since I know that some people might view it in that way, then you know, then I do—I just let them know the reality of it, so that's the way that I've handled it. Caitlin may have something different. Bryan Duarte: Absolutely. Caitlin? Do you have kind of a perspective? I know you said that you don't really have experience with it, but do you have any feedback? Caitlin Mongillo: I do have thoughts, though, of course. Bryan Duarte: Sure. Caitlin Mongillo: I have thoughts on all things. Bryan Duarte: [Laughing] Caitlin Mongillo: I, so—I agree. I think the only one thing that I would say is that, I feel like this is a very much, your mileage might vary and there's no right answer, and there's no wrong answer. It's really what you want to do and based on an individual thing. So, I absolutely think that—Rashad, I think your approach of not saying it until you kind of connect with a person, there's a ton of value and merit to that, you know, and really you're able to present it in a longer form way. But I also think, too, you know, if you felt like you wanted to put it out there initially—awesome, all the more power to you, right? But, you know, you can do that, you just have to know that, okay—well, if I connect with someone and I match with someone, maybe they're only matching with me because they want to ask all these questions about guide dogs and reading Braille and that kind of stuff. So, you may encounter that, and, you know, you also, it might be hard to know too, well, I'm not getting as many matches on Tinder, or Bumble, or you know, whatever the other ones are because I do have this out there, and are people discriminating against me because of it? So, I've seen people kind of vary it, where maybe initially they put it in there, and then, you know, after two months they take away the blind part and see if that changes. So, I think—you know, I really think it's a personal opinion more than anything else. I don't think there's one right, one wrong way to handle it. Bryan Duarte: Well you took my story, so now I don't have to share it anymore, but— Caitlin Mongillo: Sorry! [Laughing] Bryan Duarte: [Laughing] No, I think you brought up, you bring up the—my experience, at least. And so, a few years back, I did try an online dating app, if you will, it's called Coffee Meets Bagel. A bunch of my friends had tried this app called Bumble and Tinder was becoming a big thing, and so I had tried this thing. And it was accessible; I did it on my iPhone, and it was an app, and it was free for the most part. I think there was some kind of paid thing, that you could've paid for more people or—I don't know how it all worked. But, I didn't do all that, and you know, I tried that. I had my friends help me with the pictures, and I was able to type my own bio, and I tried it both ways. I tried it first telling people who I was and about me, and with the picture left the blindness out. And sure enough, you know, I had matches. But then, it became—not, I wouldn't say as awkward, I don't know how awkward I ever get, really, but it became the whole, “Oh, you're blind, well—How do you live? How do you eat? Who takes care of you? Who does…”—I'm like oh my gosh, here we go, right? Well then, I was like, let's try to avoid that and let's only try to match with people who are going to be okay with me being blind from the onset. And so I switched my profile and I left most of it there, but then I also put in a spot kind of in it that said, “Yeah I became blind when I was 18 due to a motorcycle accident, and I still continue to do what I do, and I'm independent, and it doesn't bother me so don't let it bother you,” or, I don't know—something along those lines, right? And again, I got matches, but from the beginning it was more of what I experienced later. So, it wasn't, it wasn't that there wasn't interest, it wasn't that I kept many people, at least, I still had people that were interested—blind or not blind. But really what I think we need to be okay with in a situation like this is, people are going to have questions, right? People are going to want to ask, people are not familiar with it, there's a lot of people who probably never even think that blind people would be on an app like that and it's always interesting when they are. And sometimes we need to be okay with answering questions and letting them kind of quiz us. I think there's a point where we say, hmm, okay, enough is enough, let's get back to what we're here for and, you know, the whole grand scheme of things. But, I think that letting them have that kind of Q&A time is a good thing. I personally like telling them upfront better than I did later on, because then it's the whole, “Oh yeah, by the way, I'm blind,” thing, and that's not fun for anybody, and it's really not fair, in my opinion. But I think it is important to let them ask the questions and kind of be okay with them. And I think once they talk to you, and get to know you more, that's an okay thing. But that was my experience; and you touched on it, you both touched on it, so I think we covered the online dating thing pretty well. Let's move to this other topic of: What do I want? And, what don't I want? I think these are two questions that people ask me all the time: Well, what are you looking for? What do you want? And my question, my answer's always the same: I'm not 100% sure what I want, but I know what I don't want. And that could be equally as important, right? If you know you don't want somebody who is an alcoholic, or does drugs, or who smokes, or who, you know, maybe you are looking for somebody who has the same faith as you—that could be an important thing, and that can definitely be a deal-breaker, right? And maybe you want somebody who has—it's not super important to me that they're musical, but that would be cool, right? You know, having these things in your mind, and knowing when to settle, and when not to settle. We all talked about this earlier in one of the personal relationship things, is having common interests, right? Having things that are in common. Now some of these are negotiable; others are not. So really having those listed out. So, do you have any feedback or perspective on those? Caitlin Mongillo: I know for me, if you look at my husband and I, we're very, very different. I'm kind of a little bit wild, and a little bit free-spirited—or a lot a bit free-spirited—and very loud, and excitable, and enthusiastic, might be a good way of putting it. And he's very, very bright, and he's very, very smart, and he appears to be very serious. So, the two of us together is sort of like a, you know, kind of like an opposites attract sort of thing. You know, and we do have very different interests. He's very interested in politics, I am annoyed by them. He really likes cars, and I just like that they take me places. But, you know, so there are, you know, we watch, he likes to watch the news in the morning, I want to just get dressed and go to work. So those are small things that are very different from us, but there's a lot of the core stuff that's the same; like he is incredibly kind and generous, and I try to be those things, however I'm able. And we both really love our families, and we love dogs, and we love stupid movies that are, you know, like bro comedy movies that we can quote over dinner. And, you know, so it's a matter of, I think—like you said, Bryan—it's what do you want, what do you not want? So it's, you know, but I think trying to—if someone has a lot of the core things that you value, some of the smaller stuff that's even surface—if you can look beyond the surface differences, you know, give those folks a chance, ‘cause you might find that they're truly winners for you and they work so well with you if deeper, you connect more than just, “Oh, well, you know, she really likes the New England Patriots and I'm a Jets fan so it's never going to work.” You don't want to sell yourself short, you know, and sell someone else short either. Bryan Duarte: Alright, alright—I get that. So now I have this significant other, or “SO” as my buddy used to say, and I never used to know what the “SO” was, he let me know. So now I have this SO, this significant other. What is the difference between dating and hooking up? Is there a difference? Is this a fine line or is this a line that should be easily identifiable? Rashad Jones: I think that depends on who you're talking to and what the day is because those lines can be—yeah, like now, I have a friend who is like, “We're not dating,” but you still cook for them, and then you, you're buying stuff for them like they're seven years old. What do you call it, if that ain't dating? So I think it depends on the person. To me, it definitely depends. If you are just in it for the physical aspects—shall we say the physical reward, if you will—then I think it's just, you know, you're just talking; it's just a hookup; it's just a casual type of thing. But then if there's more involved, the more time that you are able to spend together comfortably, then it's dating, in my opinion. Bryan Duarte: Okay, okay. So, let me ask this—and Caitlin I kind of want your perspective on this, with your background in social working and things like that—but, okay, now I have this boyfriend, this girlfriend, or this partner, and I want to be intimate in a physical way. Is this—do blind people do that? Is that a thing that I should be free to do, in kind of a broad sense? Obviously there could be religion or other factors playing in, and I'm not telling anybody that they have to go do this—full disclaimer—but, you know, it is a reality, it is a fact, and it's something that people do. So, if I want to be intimate, what should I—how do I go about that? How do I navigate this so that I am safe, but I'm also doing things, you know, correctly? Caitlin Mongillo: So, it's a good question, and it's a hard question. But I do think that's really, really important. So, I think, absolutely—you know, I mean, not to be too up front, but there are blind parents in this world, and their children did not just magically land on their doorsteps. Like, blind people have sex. They do, and that's great, and that's fine—just like sighted people have sex. It is not a thing that you should feel like you can't do, or shouldn't do, because you're blind or visually impaired. Nine times out of ten, you're able to do that and you should do that if you feel comfortable. But I think in terms of navigating the waters of taking our relationship from you know, handholding, or kissing, or whatever—or maybe not even doing any of those things—but wanting to do that. I'd say the most important thing is: communication is key. Right? You need to be communicating with your, either your boyfriend, your girlfriend, or, you know, I also don't think we should look down on the fact that if you're in college—or even out of college, or whatever—a lot of people just hookup. They'll just, you know, they'll go to a bar, or a club, or a concert, or a wherever, and they'll find a guy or a girl and they'll make out, and maybe they have sex, maybe they don't, that's fine. But with all of these things, if you're going to be doing something physical with someone, you want to talk it out. You know, maybe it's not “We're going to sit down and have this really long, important discussion,” but just, you know, just say— Rashad Jones: [Laughing] Make sure you have your dissertation! Caitlin Mongillo: But, it's really, really important to say to the person that you're with, “Is this okay? Can I touch you here? Can I kiss you there? Can I do this to you?” and, you know, most, most important is to respect peoples' boundaries. So, if they say “no,” no always means no. Bryan Duarte: Consent! Caitlin Mongillo: There's no grey. Rashad Jones: Right. Caitlin Mongillo: Consent is the sexiest thing you can ever have with someone else. Rashad Jones: Yes. Bryan Duarte: Yup. Caitlin Mongillo: And likewise, if you're the person and someone is doing something to you and they're not asking, tell them no! You are, your body belongs only to you. You are—no one is to touch you, to make you feel uncomfortable, to do anything, you know, like that, and you should feel free to say no. And if they are not respecting it, you know, then that's another conversation, or you leave, you know. You don't ever have to feel like you need to do something to make someone else happy. Bryan Duarte: I think you need to trademark that little slogan, “Consent is the sexiest thing…”—what, how did you say it? Rashad Jones: —“…that you can have with somebody.” Caitlin Mongillo: Exactly! Bryan Duarte: That is good—you heard it here first, people! Caitlin Mongillo: [Laughing] Bryan Duarte: And I want to touch on these things, especially for those who maybe are already sexually active, or those who are probably in that area, thinking about it, considering it. Make sure that safety is your first priority. There are health centers on every campus, whether it's a community college, a university—there's health centers all around towns, and cities; and if not, you can definitely find them online that are near you. If you go into any health center, chances are they have condoms that are out there for free. If you need pregnancy tests—hopefully you don't ‘cause you have an education to get—but they also have resources, they have materials. They will definitely bring you in and talk to you about the risks and instructions. But not instructions on how to do it, but instructions about how to navigate those waters and how to do that. So definitely be aware of the risk involved anytime you do something like this, understand where your resources can be found, and also just be aware of like I said, who you're with—or not like I said—but like Caitlin said, be aware of the people you're with, the people you're involving yourself with, and know that consent is the most important thing. And so— Caitlin Mongillo: And if I— Bryan Duarte: Go for it. Caitlin Mongillo: If I could, just to kind of add to what you're saying, because as a woman who's visually impaired, you know, like a couple other sort of just sort of things to—your student health center, like you said Bryan, that's totally your best resource. But also, a good external resource as well within the community is Planned Parenthood. They'll provide free STD screenings and exams for you if you need; they have condoms there as well, they have the pregnancy blood test that you can take. And normally for people who are in college, maybe you don't have insurance, or your insurance isn't great, so normally it's either free or low cost—Planned Parenthood. And then just, you know, if you're out and about, and you're, you know, going to a party or you're going to a bar, or you're going to a club, or you're doing whatever, and you are thinking, “Hey, I might like to, you know, hookup with someone tonight”—totally fine, awesome, you do you; but, you know, be careful about things like, if you're, you know, if you're drinking, be cognizant of, you know, how am I planning to get home—because you can't consent if you're drunk. Also, you know, if you're a young woman, watch you're drink; don't leave it just sitting out on a bar if you're going to the bathroom or you're going outside. And if you're, you know—you don't have to certainly, but maybe that's something that you go with a friend to, you know, the bar, or the club, or whatever. Or, you know, even if you're going on a date, have someone like an accountability person that you're checking in with, like, “Hey, I just got to, you know, the pizza place, I'm meeting so and so,” or “Hey I just got to the bar,” and someone who knows where you are, you know, in case you need to reach out for help. Even if it's not a consent issue, but just something where you feel uncomfortable. You know, a friend, a family member, someone who can help you get an Uber if you need to, or be there for support, you know, someone who knows where you're at I think is a good safety kind of consideration when you're looking into meeting someone for the first time, or you are gonna be out drinking, or hooking up, or whatever, until you get into a more comfortable relationship. Bryan Duarte: Absolutely. It sounds like being prepared is really the name of the game in any of these situations, right? Being prepared. So, yeah. Well, thank you both so much for this time, and your perspective, your feedback, and really tackling the fun but hard, hard questions of romantic, personal, and professional networking or relationship building. Rashad, it's always a pleasure. Caitlin, thank you so much for joining us. Caitlin Mongillo: Thank you so much for having me. Rashad Jones: Same here, yeah—thank you very much. Bryan Duarte: Before we go, we would like to thank the Learning Ally staff, funders, and stakeholders, for allowing us to start this new venture and creating a podcast. The hosts of this CSP College Knowledge podcast are Rashad Jones, Rachel Grider, and Bryan Duarte. Mary Alexander is the program director, the content writer was Kristen Witucki, Abigail Shaw is responsible for producing and editing the audio, the social media distributor manager is Katie Ottaggio, and my name is Bryan Duarte. Thank you for joining the College Knowledge podcast, thank you.

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 face. Rachel Grider: Yes. Thank you so much, Bryan. So onto mentoring, what do you enjoy most about mentoring? Bryan Duarte: How much time do we got? I especially like mentoring. For me, mentoring is as much for me as it is for the students. And I tell all of them that, because I don't look at them as mentees. I don't rarely ever call them mentees. I like to think of me as developing relationships with them, friendships, if you will. My background is in computer science and software engineering which is a pretty specific area and it's one that not a lot of people are in if they have a vision disability. So what I am unique in is that I have students who I work with who are pursuing educational careers in that area. So we have a lot in common right out the gate. And we get to talk about things that we're doing, things that we want to do. And it's so awesome as someone who has this innovative mind to hear and work with students who their mind is even more innovative. And  it's so inspiring to me all the time when I meet these students. And I'm like, “Wait, how old are you and you've done what?” It's very inspiring to me. So I really love to work with the students and to hear what they're doing and what they want to do and just really come beside them and push them, not let them cut corners, and just keep letting them push it till they achieve what they want. Rachel Grider: Wonderful, Brian. I can absolutely attest to that as well. So what would you say is one of the greatest challenges that you faced as a mentor? Bryan Duarte: I, again just being honest, I think that one of the biggest challenges is, for me as someone who is trying to develop relationships, working relationships, friendships with students, is when they don't want to ask questions. I can only help them or give them advice or coach them or share my experiences if I know what they're going through. I can guess what they're going through. But as we all can attest to, it's not all one size fits all, right. So we can't just guess that their experience is exactly like my experience. So if they don't ask questions, if they don't want to participate, if they don't want to engage, it really is difficult for me to work with them. But for the most part, I think as engineers, they always have questions, they're always used to going out and looking for answers. We always just kind of keep our channels, our networking resource channels open, if you will, that's the people, that's the websites, that's the podcasts or the  forums, whatever it is where we find answers open. So I don't run into that too often but every now and then I get a student who I work with that it either takes them a long time to open up and ask questions or they just never really do. So that's kind of the hardest thing for me. Rachel Grider: So Bryan, what would you tell a student who is considering working with a mentor or a student who is required by a program to work with one? Bryan Duarte: Great question. I would tell them definitely take the opportunity to partner with somebody, develop a relationship with somebody who… I think probably the best thing and I think that, you can attest to this as well, the best thing about the College Success program is the fact that they do a lot of work to match students with the mentor who is in their same walk of life. Either they're pursuing music degrees or they're already professional musicians, such as yourself, or  they're in acting or they're social workers or they're engineers. And they match you with students who are doing that same thing. So it's so beneficial. I would say this to any student with a visual impairment or not, that you really need to open up yourself to seeking out resources. Those resources are people like I said, those resources are tutor centers, those could be groups or clubs or organizations. But when you don't get yourself out there and you don't get involved and network with people, you're really closing yourself off to your full potential, I believe. Because there are people who have gone through what you've gone through, and it's so important that we don't reinvent the wheel, the title of this podcast, right – “Don't Reinvent the Wheel”. Go for it, talk to them, ask them questions, pick their brain, brainstorm together and just really take advantage of the opportunity you have to learn from somebody who's done what you've done, done what you could be doing. Rachel Grider: Yes, I absolutely agree with you. It's very difficult to be successful if you try to do everything alone, right? Bryan Duarte: Absolutely, yes absolutely.  Rachel Grider: We need to network and our matchmaker knows what she's doing.  Bryan Duarte: Yeah, platonic matchmaker professional. Rachel Grider: Platonic matchmaker. Yes, so thank you so much, Bryan for sharing your insights. So now let's go on to our two students. Our first student is Faizan Jamil, one of Brian's mentees. And don't worry, this isn't like a reality show when the two of them will start yelling at each other. Faizan, welcome to the show. Could you tell us a little about yourself? Faizan Jamil: Thank you for having me. Lets see, where do I start. I am a student who's studying computer science, studying in New Paltz. Currently, I'm in my third year of college. I hail from basically western Nassau County of Long Island, New York. It's right near the city and I've been visually impaired since pretty much birth and it's gotten to a point where I'm completely blind in my left eye, but my vision in my right eye is fine. Rachel Grider: Ok great, thank you. So what is one challenge you have faced during college? Faizan Jamil: More than ten. More than I can count on my fingers, I can tell you that much. Lets see, the one that keeps coming up and the one that's always, I mean always at the forefront of my mind is always I got time management, where it's even, where it's ok. Yeah, that we all have this issue in college it seems like. Well it's, you have even with a semester like this current semester that we're going through right now. I'm only taking three classes. I have a class where the professor is - nice lady. She gives a lot of work, she gives a lot of work and compound that with my other two classes, where one of them is Calculus 2, which for anyone who's had the, let's say, pleasure of taking that class, well who had the privilege of taking that class would agree, that's not an experience you'd want to go through again. Rachel Grider: I haven't taken that class but I can imagine. I can definitely imagine what you're talking about.  Faizan Jamil: Yeah, Bryan should know what I'm talking about.  Rachel Grider: Oh yes. Bryan Duarte: Oh, I very much do.  Rachel Grider: Oh man, that's why I'm a music major guys. All right, so how has working with a mentor helped with this challenge that you just described? Faizan Jamil:  Now Bryan, as you know, is my mentor. He has been extremely helpful when it comes to this sort of thing, that's extremely helpful as, helpful as, someone can be in this situation where we will go exchange back and forth text messages. We were texting about this well a couple of weeks ago before my online classes started. He has been extremely helpful in the regard that I have been mentioning that I have struggles with time management, or this issue and that issue. He's suggested ways that I can handle that with mobile apps or computer apps or whatever. So for time management specifically, he gave me a couple recommendations for apps like Google Keep. Microsoft has their own to do list app and there's Any.do, Wunderlist that sort of thing. I eventually went with the Google option of Google Keep because I don't use my Microsoft account that much and Google already has me in their clutches. So give them some more food to feed on if you know what I'm saying.  Bryan Duarte: They have us all, buddy. Faizan Jamil: Yeah, they do. Rachel Grider: Great. Thank you for sharing that. That is a great example of how your mentor has helped you and also how technology has helped you. So now that we've talked about challenges, what is one thing that you enjoy about college?  Faizan Jamil: The people. Without a doubt, it's dorm life and the people you meet there. And that's what's absolutely made college for me. Right now, college to me is all about dorm life where, not that I have parties in my room and stuff like that, not that I'm too distracted from my studies but, I have a group of friends that I hang out with. I have a couple people that I very much enjoy the company of and that they, I hope, enjoy my company. But I consider them friends and I really hope that after college we can stay in touch. But we'll see how that goes. Hopefully it will.  Rachel Grider: So do you feel that the social aspect of college is just as important as the academic aspect? Faizan Jamil: Oh absolutely. I learned that firsthand my first year where I had a tough schedule for a first semester kid and I didn't have a good group of friends to turn to. So I had to find one and luckily within the past couple, like past twoish years, I found one. Rachel Grider: Excellent. That is wonderful.  Bryan Duarte: So Faizan, can you let us know. Have you used any of the school resources such as your gym or your tutoring center or have gotten involved in any clubs or organizations at school? Faizan Jamil: Yeah sure. That's a good question, Brian. Let's just start with the facilities because that's a bit of a shorter bit for me to say. So I have used the on-school gyms. So actually at my school it's a bit interesting where we have a gym on campus which is spacious. It's big. It's all right. It's nothing to sneeze at, but it's a free gym so who's going to complain. We also have a mini gym in some of the dorms, or at least in mine, where down in the basement 8:30 to 12 every night, the mini gym is open. And you can do some exercise there. There‘s no cardio stuff but they do offer yoga mats and stuff. I normally just hang around there because frankly, I confess in cold weather, I can't be bothered to walk all the way to the gym in just gym shorts. So, but in short, I have used the gym, yes. I generally go there for stress relief and stuff. As for clubs, yeah I've been involved with one or two clubs. First semester, I was involved with a bit more but I had to sort of narrow it down to find clubs that I actually enjoyed going to. So right now I'm currently involved with two clubs. One of which is the gaming society on campus its called, I think, “Gaming Society of New Paltz” where they do a variety of gaming not just video gaming or board gaming. It's sort of a mix of both where you have one… Rachel Grider: That's cool. Faizan Jamil: Yeah I know. It's awesome. I love it. Bryan Duarte: Do you guys have LAN parties? Faizan Jamil: I wish. I'd love for there to be LAN parties. But no, they usually just have console games and then board games like various games like Secret Hitler. Occasionally we have UNO nights or card games or D&D (Dungeons & Dragons). And I'm currently serving on the e-board for that club which I also very much enjoy. Rachel Grider: That's great. Bryan Duarte: That's really awesome. That's good to hear because I think a lot of students are apprehensive about getting involved in clubs when they have any kind of disability, not even just a visual disability. So that's really awesome that you shared that. I hope some students will take away that they can be fun and they are inviting whether you have a visual disability or not. Thank you. Faizan Jamil: Because I'm blind in my left eye, I pretty much have to use a cane even though I can see fine. Not that many people have grilled me about it. People have questioned it, but they're polite about it. So I got lucky there that I'm not facing any other obstacles with my visual impairment. Only thing is, I just got to move closer to the TV. That's all.  Rachel Grider: That's great. I think it's important too to realize, I think, what you shared about social life, being in clubs, being with your friends, how important that is. I think it's absolutely key to having a successful college … is being able to network with people just like we were talking about. So, and it's important, just as important as academics. So thank you for sharing your experiences both of you, Faizan and Bryan. Now we'll speak with another student, Kaitlyn Ryan. So Kaitlyn, welcome to the podcast. Could you tell us a little about yourself? Kaitlyn Ryan:  Thank you so much. Oh ok yeah. So my name is Kaitlyn. I'm 20. This is my 3rd semester in community college cause I went first semester Minneapolis and I was in training at a blindness center up there called Blind Incorporated. But now I attend Black Hawk Community College. So I attend Black Hawk Community College and I live in the student apartments up there. And I'm going to become a teacher of the visually impaired and I'm going to minor in spanish.  Rachel Grider: And what year did you say you were in college right now? Kaitlyn Ryan: So I'm technically still a freshman cause I took … With Blind Incorporated, I was able to take community college classes while getting the independent living skills I needed. So actually I had the support of the Blind Incorporated staff. So it's my third semester. I'm still considered a freshman.  Rachel Grider: Ok that's great. All right so what is one of the challenges that you have faced so far during college? Kaitlyn Ryan: So my first semester was pretty smooth sailing cause it was just  two classes and I had the skills. But I'm actually a dog user. So actually the biggest challenge I have faced is access with my guide dog. Rachel Grider: Oh wow can you elaborate on that please? Kaitlyn Ryan: Oh yeah absolutely. So the disability coordinator was not really hip on me having a dog on campus. She was nervous about accidents and other issues. We did have a couple accidents when I was walking on my gym… My college gym has an indoor track. But I cleaned them up and took the appropriate precautions to correct her and do what I needed to do. But they were trying to tell me that the dogs just shouldn't be on campus due to the fact that she could have accidents. And apparently some students were getting distracted by her because they could just look at her and not the teacher. So it was a lot of involving. I went to The Seeing Eye and I want to give a big shoutout to Melissa Allman who is the advocacy specialist at The Seeing Eye, who helped advocate with me and explain the ADA and explain all the laws about guide dogs and how the dog is helpful in making me an independent person. Also at the time there was a president whose name is Jim and he also explained the need of the dog because Jim and Melissa are both dog users themselves.   Rachel Grider: Oh man. Thank you for sharing that. I'm also a Seeing Eye graduate. So I know both Melissa and Jim and I have had them help me with similar issues. So I'm really, really glad they were able to. So now at this point are you still facing that type of access issue or has that pretty much been resolved? Kaitlyn Ryan: It's been resolved. So actually now my challenge is I'm in math class and we're doing graphing and it's online because of the whole situation. So that's my new life challenge.  Rachel Grider: So what have you done? Has your mentor helped you with this issue or what other ways have you found to get around this issue?  Kaitlyn Ryan: It kind of came up within the past couple of weeks because Megan and I do biweekly calls. Megan is my mentor and we've been texting a little bit about the graphing stuff. She's actually calling me tomorrow. So we're going to discuss it more. I've also been utilizing the college tutoring center. We have great tutors and they've been able to do tutoring over the phone with me. So that's been super helpful in explaining the graph. Also the Disability Center was able to order raised graph paper. So that has been super helpful. Bryan Duarte: If you haven't used them already, I would look into Wikki Stix. Wikki Stix are a great way for you to build your graph in a tactile way. For those who don't know, a Wikki stick is a little wax straw or wax string. It's a string coated in wax and you can take those strings and you can bend them and mold them and push them and stick them on your raised graph paper. That's how I used to do graphing as a blind college student doing calculus and such math things. So that's awesome. Thanks for sharing that. It does sound like you are using the tutor centers which is also a great thing. Cause that's the question I was going to ask you. So thanks for sharing that. Kaitlyn Ryan: Oh no problem. And also, just for people, because Wikki Stix is a common name, but they also have been called Bendaroos in a lot of craft stores. They actually call them Bendaroos. So just in case students are like, “Ok let's go get these.” And they go to a craft store and ask for customer assistance and they're like, “What's Wikki Stix?” You can say “oh, Bendaroos,” and they're the same thing. Rachel Grider: Tell me one thing, or several things if you'd like, that you have enjoyed so far about your college experience.  Kaitlyn Ryan: I love that, and it was the kind of setup in Blind Incorporated too, but I love meeting people from different backgrounds and diversities. I come from a small town of 800 people, so we all knew each other, and on a family farm. So honestly growing up I'm just like “Everyone has to live the same,” right. So I like that it's taught me that everyone does live differently and has a bunch of different unique experiences. So I really like that and I just like the social part overall. I also love my job that I actually have on campus now and I just think college is overall easier than high school.  Rachel Grider: What job is this that you have on campus? Kaitlyn Ryan: So I am what they call an event coordinator. So I advertise the different events that are happening on college, and get decorations up for them for like black history month, all the different African Americans that have made a difference and we put quotes up. We decorated the campus for Valentine's Day and different stuff and then usually a few days before the event, we have a popcorn stand that we set up. That way if students are walking by they're like, “oh, free popcorn,” and then I get to explain the event that is going on, the location, the time, the day and any other questions that students or staff may have about the event.  Rachel Grider: That's great. So thank you so much for your wonderful insighst, Kaitlyn and for being on this podcast. Kaitlyn Ryan: You're welcome. Bryan Duarte: Thanks, Rachel for those great interviews. Be sure to join us next time for episode 3, where we're going to be talking all about relationships, relationships from a personal, professional and even romantic perspective with one of our venturing mentors, Caitlin Mongillo. Be sure to leave us a review on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. And share with your friends that we have started this new journey of podcasting. Before we go, we'd just like to thank the Learning Ally staff for supporting us in the making of this podcast as well as our funders and stakeholders for supporting us in all that we do. Your co hosts for College Knowledge are Bryan Duarte, Rachel Grider and Rashad Jones. The program director is Mary Alexander. The podcast writer is Kristen Witucki. Abigail Shaw produced the audio and our social media and distribution manager is Katie Ottaggio. My name is Bryan Duarte. And thank you for joining us for College Knowledge. 

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 communicating with professors, discovering technology, learning effectively, making social connections and partnering with your disabilities office. They're all pretty self-explanatory and we will delve into them in future episodes. And then the courses we came up with since the program started after those first five were launched, were basically based on mentor feedback, so, for instance, we are very lucky to have a travel and O&M course written primarily by an O&M instructor with help from mentors, and we have a course about living on your own for the first time, we have one about career exploration, one about low vision. So there's a lot of dynamic content in the curriculum that is always changing and growing so we're really happy about that.  Rashad Jones: Yeah, as one of the mentors, one of the things we have to do is go through every so often test the curriculum out so to speak and I have noticed that over the years that I've been working with Learning Ally and the College Success Program, it's gotten better and better every time so, I think it it's something hopefully that is useful to the students.     Kristen Witucki: And the final component is community and that takes many different forms, from our Facebook pages, that everybody can see, to our Facebook group for members to a weekly meetup event that basically allows students who are in the program to chat informally with mentors. One of the exciting developments from the meetups is that these are events that really encourage all students to join and some of the students who are already working with mentors are joining. But a lot of new students come on and they just wanna check out what the program's about and stay for a few minutes and then they end up signing up for a mentor and I think that's a really cool development.  Rashad Jones: Yeah, okay. That's really cool. So moving right along here, I've got another just a few questions for you. You've been so generous, might as well as keep you talking. So, what is your job like on a day to day basis?  Kristen Witucki: Well, I work primarily from my home office, which is in Highland Park in my house, about half an hour from Learning Ally's headquarters in Princeton. I'm close enough so that I can go into the office when I'm needed and when I don't go in, I meet with colleagues through Zoom, which is an accessible meeting software platform. And then to complete my work, which is a lot of writing and editing, I use either a computer running JAWS for Windows, or I use a BrailleNote. I work really closely with our marketing and social engagement manager who you'll meet in a few minutes, the mentor coordinator who you'll meet in the next episode, our program director and some program staff. So just to give you an idea of some of the random things I end up doing, for instance, I'll write a letter about an event and the engagement manager will edit it and then prepare it for distribution or she'll write something and I'll check it. I work really closely with the mentor coordinator to interview mentors and train them. I offer support to a group of them. I communicate with program stakeholders like funders and the advisory panel, which is a group of experts who helps to influence the shape of our curriculum. Often in the summer, if I can, I supervise an intern or two, and finally, most importantly, I sometimes write but I usually just facilitate course topics or blog content. Usually I feel like just my experience is not really enough to have a robust curriculum so I get a lot of input from our mentors or other experts in the field, or blind students I know and that's what gives the curriculum its dynamic voice I think. Rashad Jones: Yeah, for sure. Like I said earlier, you've done an incredible and continue to do an incredible amount with the program. You're awfully busy, do you ever have time to breathe? Do you ever?  Kristen Witucki: Yes, yes! But only because breathing is an involuntary activity. Rashad Jones: That's the only way you could fit it in I think, yes! So, just as we are wrapping up this interview, what projects or new changes are you looking forward to in the future for the program?  Kristen Witucki: Well, we're hoping to expand some elements of the program, to high school students, so that they can learn some of these skills before they get to college and don't have time to look at the curriculum. We want them to actually know how to communicate with their professors before they ever have to do it. But we're not quite sure what that's going to look like just yet. We're still gathering data through surveys and through focus groups to try and figure that out.  Rashad Jones: Yeah. I think that's going to be a really, really cool piece that we implement if we're able to do it because you know, with most things, the earlier you start on something, the more familiar and comfortable you are with it, and it just makes the whole process go that much more smoothly. So that's something that I personally am looking forward to. All right. So, moving along again, what is one piece of advice that you would give to a student on this journey? Kristen Witucki: Well, it can be scary and overwhelming at times, but try to delve into a few different interests. So if there's more than one hobby that you're interested in, maybe try to explore it. Um, if you can, while you have these four or so years to do it, because you never know where your job life will take you and having a few different areas of knowledge that you love will make it a lot more interesting and your adult career a lot more satisfying, I think.  Rashad Jones: Yeah. Okay. So it sounds like you're saying just, don't be afraid to get out there and see what all you can do between all your studies.  Kristen Witucki: Yeah, exactly. Rashad Jones: Okay. All right. Well, Kristen, really thank you so much for coming in and sharing all that you do and everything that you've contributed to our program. And we really appreciate you taking the time to stop by this evening.  Kristen Witucki: Thanks Rashad. Rashad Jones: No problem. Thank you. Well, unlike our last guest, our next guest is relatively new to the program, but she's already brought a social energy and we're really noticing that students are engaged more and we're happy about that. So Katie Ottaggio lives in Pennsylvania, has a passion for marketing and is a mother of two. So welcome Katie to College Knowledge. Thank you so much for joining us. Katie Ottaggio: Thanks for having me. Rashad Jones: Alright. Well, I've got a few questions for you. How did you become interested in college success and in blindness and visual impairment in general? Katie Ottaggio: Yeah, so I definitely have a different story than everybody else on the podcast. I'm new to this. This is new to me. I'm not new to school programs to education college programs, but I'm new to the blind and visually impaired community. So, that's one aspect of it that is very interesting to me. It's always an interesting for all of us to learn about something new. So I'm really enjoying that piece of it. But I come to Learning Ally, I'm really new. I started back in October. So I've only been here for a few months and I've worked though before that in a lot of education programs, everything from health and wellness programs, school feeding programs, STEM competitions, financial literacy and education, just a wide variety of things. And, when I learned about this position, which is a engagement marketing type position, it really was attractive to me. And I thought that it would be a great opportunity to continue working on education programs, but in a new capacity. So that's how I kind of landed here! Rashad Jones: Okay. Well that sounds wonderful. We are, again, certainly just thrilled to have your spirit and vitality in that side of what we do. So, you know, welcome aboard! Katie Ottaggio: Thanks! Rashad Jones: So what is your role in the program speaking of which? Katie Ottaggio: So technically my title is CSP engagement operations manager. So that's a long way of saying that I pretty much market and engage the program. So there's kind of two aspects to what I do. I bring about brand awareness to the program. I put out things like social media and emails and really just try to get the name out there. So people are aware that there's this great resource out there available to them. And then from there, once people are signed up, I do a lot of work to get them more engaged in the program, to be using it, to be aware of any new things that we may have coming out. All the things that you would expect to hear once you've already joined a program. So that's kind of the two sides of what I do. I work with Kristin, who you just heard from before. We worked together a lot and she mentioned, writing emails and stuff and in social things. And that's where I come in and I work with other members of the team and across Learning Ally and really, my focus is just on making sure that this program is put out there into the world and people are aware of it. And then once they know about it, that they're using it. Rashad Jones: Okay. So that kind of includes your day to day kinda hit on, on what I was going to ask you about next, but that's kind of your day to day just coming up with posts and things like that to market us, or is that part of what you do? Katie Ottaggio: Yeah! It's anything that falls under a marketing bucket. That can be social media, that can be emails that can be if Learning Ally decides to go to a conference and exhibit or to a workshop or put on a webinar or things like this podcast, it's creating, taking all that content, kind of creating it, putting some words around it and then getting it out there through, however (and) whatever means make the most sense for us to do that. So that's kinda what it all boils down to.  Rashad Jones: Okay. All right. Sounds really good. So we're wrapping up this interview, but I did have a few more questions for you. So what projects are you looking forward to in the future? I know you're just now getting here, just a couple of months ago, a few months ago, but what do you think is on the horizon for us?  Katie Ottaggio: I, you know, like you said, I haven't been here long, so I'm still learning a lot. But I'm really looking forward to unearthing some of the great success stories of our mentors, of our students, of people involved in the program and really getting those out there. I think it's a really cool thing to be able to see yourself in somebody else's experience. And I think there's a lot of students out there who could really benefit from hearing what other people, other students like them are going through or dealing with. So I'm really excited to get that stuff out there because I think there's a lot there.  Rashad Jones: All right. Sounds so exciting. And then, what piece of advice would you give to anyone who's either interested in the program or studying and need a little bit of help. What would you say?  Katie Ottaggio: Oh! I thought about this question a lot and what I would say, and because there's so many pieces of advice that you can give and you hear how many graduation speeches and they tell you all these cliche things, but I really distilled it down to one thing - kinda of like what I tell my kids when they're trying vegetables for the first time, try everything once and then try it one more time. Do the same thing with your classes or with getting out there and meeting people or having conversations. Try it and then try it again. Hopefully it'll work out. It will work out! Rashad Jones: Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So it's not just a one and done, you advocate going the extra mile and try it one more time just to make sure you don't like it. Katie Ottaggio: Exactly.  Rashad Jones: And then see how, how it all shapes out from there. Okay, gotcha. That sounds like a great piece of advice for all of us. Thank you so much, Katie, for coming on and sharing with us. It's been a pleasure having you on. Katie Ottaggio: Thank you, you're welcome.  Rachel Grider: Thank you, Rashad for those great interviews. What's next on the podcast? Rashad Jones: All right, well next we'll be talking to the boss. No, actually next time we'll be talking to our mentorship coordinator. She's kind of like the matchmaker of the program. She matches up the mentors and the mentees and makes sure everybody is happy with one another. That's kind of what she does. Then we'll talk with some students and some other mentors about the program and their outlook on things.  Rachel Grider: Excellent. So join us next time for episode two - Mentorship or How not to Reinvent the Wheel. And please leave us a review on iTunes and tell your friends we're beginning this exciting new venture.  Rashad Jones: Before we go, we just like to take the time to thank the Learning Ally staff for supporting the launch of College Knowledge. All of our funders and stakeholders, our programming director who is Mary Alexander. The script was written by Kristen Witucki who we heard from earlier. The show's audio engineer is Abigail Shaw and our social media distributor is Katie Ottaggio. So thank you goes out to all of you guys for helping us put this on.

Mike Huguenin shares his "College Knowledge" and wraps up a huge weekend in college football!

The Total Tutor Neil Haley will interview NBA Slam Dunk Champion Glen Robinson lll. He will discuss the NBA finals and The All-City 5 Shoe, which is on Wayofwade.com  and will be exclusively in-store at The Edition Boutique. NBA star GLENN ROBINSON III (Pacers), the 23-year old-pro b ball star sensation who won the Slam Dunk NBA All-Stars contest this year -- with the most amazing reverse slam in NBA history. Pretty amazing for this beyond impressive player born 3 months premature who could not dunk until his sophomore year of high school. He is an exceptionally well-spoken and humble player who continues to impress the world, including giving back to the community on his off days (see his charismatic interview here). You may have seen Glenn last night during PRIMETIME hour on JIMMY KIMMEL LIVEduring the hilarious segment playing “College Knowledge” with current and former NBA players: Andre Drummond, Jalen Rosen and Caron Butler.