For Disability History Month we spoke to Maisie, a Psychology undergraduate, about her experience of being a student with a disability:<\/p>\n
How did you find access to disability support services when you first joined the university?<\/strong><\/p>\n My experience was pretty good. I was in contact with the Disability Support team well before I'd even applied to the university, because I\u2019m disabled in multiple ways. I guess with relatively high support needs, I wanted to make sure that I was definitely applying to universities which could meet my needs. I found that it was really helpful, whoever I contacted in the disability team, they'd be up for chatting with me. Before I'd even applied they met with me in person, and twice before I joined the university.<\/p>\n And it\u2019s not just disability support services, but also other students like Isobel in the Students\u2019 Union Disability Action Group. I was in contact with her a little bit before joining and that was also really reassuring. Plus the Res Life team [who manage student accommodation] were very good at helping me to find accommodation that would best meet my needs.<\/p>\n What kinds of support or accommodations have been most helpful for you?<\/strong><\/p>\n We worked quite hard to find accommodation that could meet my needs, and because I have a carer, that was an added complexity. My carer is my mum so I'm fine with her being in my room. The Res Life team was very understanding of my individuals needs and they were open about which buildings would not work for me. At the end of the day, there was only I think four or five rooms that would meet my needs, so they just put my name down on it. They've been good with minor adaptations I\u2019ve requested, but they've been unable to do bigger ones like putting in a ramp or automated door access. But it is what it is.<\/p>\n In terms of academics, probably some of the most helpful ones have been getting all the lecture slideshows given to me in advance. My Disabled Students\u2019 Allowance (DSA) from the government has been really helpful, they've given me quite a lot of ergonomic equipment to use when I\u2019m studying in my accommodation. It's not practical to take it into university, which is a bit annoying when I'm struggling with ergonomic and postural support in lectures. Then the DSA mentor and study skills support has made such a huge difference as well, I get four hours a week.<\/p>\n What challenges have you faced that you think other students or staff might not be aware of?<\/strong><\/p>\n I've found the people are less aware of invisible disabilities and what they involve. Because I use crutches full time it's very obvious for people to see I might need help with carrying stuff, and I really appreciate that. But then I've had to explain quite a few times to staff that if they don't share the slides with me beforehand I physically can't see it and I can't process it. I think that when you look like you're coping with stuff, even if it's a mask, then people just assume that you are okay. But in reality, I've made no notes from that lecture because I couldn't see what the lecture was about. But once they're aware then everyone is, on the whole, quite accommodating.<\/p>\n Sometimes when it comes to intersectionality I think that disability can be overlooked. There needs to be more realisation that disabled students can, I guess be imperfect in a way, or they don't necessarily have to line up exactly to the expectations that the university sets on them. I do think that it's a challenge, but disability shouldn't be looked at purely from an academic or accommodation perspective. I think it should be looked at in every single aspect, including communication and student life, and not as an add-on. It should be that if a student is disabled think \u201cdo we need to treat the situation differently?\u201d even if it's not about disability.<\/p>\n What opportunities are there for us to grow our support for undergraduates?<\/strong><\/p>\n I think that there should be a bigger push towards having accessibility as the default. In my subject at least (I know this doesn't happen in a lot of subjects) they record most lectures and give out most of the resources beforehand. But there should be other things which should be considered as default. Like to get an accessible copy of course texts, sometimes you have to e-mail people in the library and wait for it to some in. Sometimes they even have to go to the publishers. Disability has a lot of extra admin, and I feel like people don't really appreciate that.<\/p>\n Also there's conflicting access needs. The other day me and my friend went into the sensory room and there was another person in there too. My friend is blind and she can't see in low level lights, so she turned them on to the maximum setting because that's what she needed. However, I noticed the other person in there seemed overstimulated, probably from things like bright lights. It would be good to have multiple spaces like that on campus for people with differing needs.<\/p>\n Have you been able to connect with other disabled students or find a sense of community?<\/strong><\/p>\n Yes, I have definitely been! I am on the Committee for the Disability Action Group and we hold regular socials.<\/p>\n There's the autism social group and also the Beginning at Bath event, which was a two-day event before the semester started, for first year students who are autistic so we could get to know each other. That was honestly by far the best pre-uni event I\u2019ve been to. It meant that when I turned up to university I knew that there would be people moving in the same day as me, even if I don't know them that well, there's just a familiar face and that was really nice. I still talk to quite a few of them and we go to the autism social group, it's definitely a sense of community and nice supportive vibe.<\/p>\n A lot of societies have got disabled students in them so then there\u2019s almost subcultures within a subculture, and it's just it's really nice. It's honestly amazing here.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For Disability History Month we spoke to Maisie, a Psychology undergraduate, about her experience of being a student with a disability: How did you find access to disability support services when you first joined the university? My experience was pretty...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":620,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-disability"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/inclusion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/inclusion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/inclusion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/inclusion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/620"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/inclusion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/inclusion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/inclusion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/inclusion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/inclusion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}