College Bound

College Bound

Braille Monitor
March 2014

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College Bound
by Meg Dowell
From the Editor: This article is reprinted from the Fall 2013 edition of the Braille Examiner. In it Meg Dowell demonstrates that she has grasped at an early age what it takes many of us decades to understand about being blind and coming to regard it as an important but by no means the most significant of our many characteristics. Here is what she says:
At eighteen I did not want to go to college. I wanted the education, the friends, the life experience—but I didn't feel ready to leave home. Not even a semester at a community college seemed enough to prepare me for moving away to start my education at a four-year university. I had been accepted at my dream college, and I would have the chance to pursue the major I'd picked out in high school. I should have been ecstatic.
Accommodations weren't the problem. I knew how to advocate for myself. In fact, some college professors are more willing than high school teachers to accommodate a student with a visual impairment. I wasn't worried about making friends either. From the first day I could tell my roommate and I were going to hit it off. So everything should have been fine. I was enrolled at Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbonnais, Illinois. The campus isn't far from my home, and I had been there many times as I was growing up. I was an Olivetian, born and raised. Surely I could figure out college life.
"Mom!" I pressed the phone to my ear and looked around. "I think I'm lost." Well, maybe not.
Mom verbally guided me back to my dorm (and no tears were shed during that particular incident, thank you very much). It didn't take long for me to figure out the relatively simple layout of my campus. Once I found where all my classes were located, I stopped feeling like such a lost sheep.
The campus wasn't the source of my problems. What took me a long time was coming to terms with my blindness. I've been legally blind since birth, and I'd long ago made peace with my blindness in a physical sense. But I still had some distance to go toward a deeper acceptance. College is the place where you're supposed to find yourself, and, by the time I approached my freshman year, I was growing tired of letting my disability define me. Even though I insisted on calling it my "visual dilemma," it had a major say in how I lived my life—and I wasn't okay with that.
Until I attended my first NFBI convention, I'd met only one other visually impaired person in my life. I didn't know what I was stumbling into that first convention weekend, but once I made it through, I knew I would never be the same. Everyone I met taught me to embrace my physical challenge and turn it into a massive strength. Though I'd never made my blindness a weakness, I still let it speak for me—and that's not what being blind is all about. It's about accepting every part of yourself, even the parts that don't work the way they're supposed to.
For the longest time I had shied away from the thing I wanted the most—to study dietetics. I kept my longing a secret; I thought no one would support me if I decided to pursue a major so unsuitable for a blind girl. Worse still, I'd somehow talked myself into believing I couldn't do it even if I tried. But that same stubborn determination that convinced me to give college a try finally won out. I was done letting my self-doubt run the show. I took a chance and ignited a dream, and I haven't looked back since.
As I remember my first week living on my own, I realize I have nearly an unlimited number of people to thank. They taught me that it's not about being brave but about having faith. The fact that you can't see well doesn't mean you have to wander around aimlessly or call Mom for help (even though she's always there, just in case).
Being a college student with a disability has taught me never to let my limitations stand in my way. People may not always understand our needs, but that doesn't mean they're not willing to help. People may not always accept us, but that doesn't mean they'll disrespect us. And, if they do, well, that's their loss.
If you ever do get lost and aren't sure where to go next, the NFBI has your back (and a handy set of directions, too). If you're about to go off to college for the first time, don't ever forget what you're leaving behind—a past that will eventually shape your future. If you let that past become an obstacle, there won't be a future. Face your fears. Discover who you are and love every piece of who you will become.

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