Navigating College Blind | Episode #5

Episode 5

Navigating College Blind

In this episode, Dr. Droste and Brey talk about the complexities of navigating higher education. Bre grew up as a sighted child, yet throughout her high school career, her sight deteriorated. Brey faced many obstacles in the transition from a sighted to an unsighted world, and as a legally blind college student, Bre discovered a wealth of resources that unsighted college students across the globe can access. Brey's insights and experiences outlined in this episode can help equip students and parents to face these challenges.

The “Through Our Eyes” podcast is brought to you by the Pediatric Retinal Research Foundation. We are a community of visually impaired young adults talking about what it’s like to navigate high school, college, career, and beyond. We share our experiences and cover a wide range of topics providing you with actionable tips and strategies that you can implement in your own life.

  • 0:00:10.6 Dr. Droste: Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Through Our Eyes podcast of the Pediatric Retinal Research Foundation. Today we have Breyanna Willett, who prefers to be called Brey, who is one of our superstars that we are engaging with this podcast. Brey has an interesting history that's different from some others. She was sighted most of her life, later became unsighted and she's had challenges in that area. So, Brey, I'd like to ask you again, what in your mind is the biggest challenge you had going from a sighted to unsighted world?

    0:00:42.1 Breyanna Willett: Oh, boy. Honestly, probably the biggest thing that was the major part was just learning how to basically relearn everything. I had to learn all about accessible technology and how to navigate and walk with a cane. Just learning how it's okay to ask for help, especially when it comes to certain things, especially like schoolwork and stuff like that. Yeah, probably that it's okay to ask for help, especially when you need it.

    0:01:24.5 DD: What was your age when you started experiencing severe loss of vision?

    0:01:29.4 BW: Sure. So when I was nine, we had found out that I have fever. Honestly, at that point, I didn't really notice anything but it turns out I basically had no vision in my left eye. In my right eye, I was about, I think they caught it at like 20, 60 ish. So I could still see, but obviously not to where a normal kid should be seeing at nine years old so.

    0:02:01.6 DD: And so how long did that, that's at nine. So how long before the fever affected your sound eye?

    0:02:08.7 BW: Yeah. So I obviously had dealt with vision up and down throughout high school and stuff like that but I really didn't start to go legally blind until I was probably 20 ish. I was able to drive and do live basically a normal life but at 21, I couldn't pass the eye chart. And that's when my life basically turned upside down and I had to relearn everything again because now I went from having tolerable vision where I could navigate and do things to basically having nothing. So probably from the time I was 20 until 26 ish, my vision was decreasing and decreasing and decreasing. And finally last year, that was when my right eye basically, I lost it.

    0:03:04.9 BW: It was really, really sudden. And it was really hard just knowing that basically, again, I had to relearn everything to work with what vision I had remaining in my left eye, which at this point I can count fingers from three feet away. So not a whole lot but I've learned how to deal with it and I have always been very independent and I don't like to rely on others to basically run my life. Transitioning from having sight in my right eye to not having sight in my right eye was probably yeah hard.

    0:03:54.0 DD: The next question is, did you learn Braille?

    0:03:57.1 BW: So I had started taking O&M lessons, orientation and mobility, in eighth grade, where it was just kind of like a thing that someday I could lose my vision but obviously we're gonna hope not but here's just in case. And during that time I had started learning Braille, but I never really took it seriously 'cause obviously you're a kid and you're not really thinking this would ever happen to me. So when I turned like 26 and my vision started to go get worse, I had connected with my local commission for the blind and they had sent out a Braille teacher and I can read it. I'm not very good at it and I'm not very quick at it. It has to be like spelled out. Like I can't read conjugated Braille or anything like that but I can pass if I had to.

    0:04:58.5 DD: So would you say that you've kind of gone to technical media and screen readers and other things to get from point A to point B rather than to master Braille?

    0:05:10.1 BW: Absolutely. I feel like especially because I was sighted in school for the most part, I had really, you know, I had grown up with the ability to know how screen readers and stuff work. And it's just easier for me to be able to pull up like a word document or something for school and have my screen reader read it to me rather than having to go through and read Braille, learn how to read Braille, read conjugated Braille and stuff like that. But so I definitely rely on like magnifiers and screen readers a lot more than Braille.

    0:05:43.9 DD: That has been my experience as a physician also to try, especially to take a young person that has sight to try to teach them Braille is largely ineffective for the reasons that you just iterated. However, when the lights do go out, then the motivation gets high. But I'm seeing more and more people go like you skipping the Braille and go to automated consent information and digital media and so on. What are some of the main... You are in college now, is that correct?

    0:06:17.0 BW: Yes, I'll graduate in the spring.

    0:06:19.1 DD: What are some of the main digital modalities that you use to get through your courses?

    0:06:25.4 BW: So I use my phone. I have an iPhone and that is basically my holy grail. It's super easy for me to just turn on voiceover and be able to log on to my school's website and navigate from there. Luckily, everything on like the student portal is pretty accessible. It's not a hundred percent but it's easier to navigate than trying to do it on my laptop. It just takes me a lot longer on my laptop than my phone. But if I'm typing like a paper or something like that, obviously I use my laptop instead of my phone.

    0:07:02.9 DD: Now, if you're in a lecture, for example, let's say a lecture in Chemistry, how would you use your phone to copy down the equations and solve the problems?

    0:07:15.9 BW: Sure. So basically, I don't take chemistry, but I had to take a statistics class and every time he would go through a problem, I have, I forget exactly what it's called, but it's basically like a portable CCTV. So it's a camera that hooks up to my laptop and I'm able to zoom in on the whiteboard or the chalkboard or whatever they're using. So I'm able to view it on my laptop closer to me rather than trying to squint. And if it's something super complex and I missed a label or something like that and I need to go back and redo it, I'll ask the professor, obviously before they erase it, if it's possible, I can take a picture or if they can send me like the PowerPoint, all of my professors send me a PowerPoint of the lectures and stuff like that. And any in-class worksheets that could be handed out, they all email them to me either before class or like right before we start doing the activity and stuff like that. So luckily my professors are very easy to work with.

    0:08:28.7 DD: Well, that's good. You're able to actually copy a handout and enlarge it so that you can read it?

    0:08:35.1 BW: Yep. So either, like I said, either I'll see it up on the board and it'll be projected onto my laptop where I can copy it down either in a notebook. If I have a blank, kind of like a sketchbook. It doesn't have any lines or anything where I'm able to draw it out. If it was like a graph, I'm able to draw it out really big and to write it down like that or I would use my Word document or something like that. And then if worst case scenario, if we had like a pop quiz or something like that, usually professors are pretty good knowing me and knowing my circumstances that I would be like, okay, is there a way that I can just take a picture of the worksheet or the pop quiz or whatever and then can I read it off of my phone, off of the photo, zoomed in and then like write my answers on a separate piece of paper, like spaced out. So obviously none of the questions overlap or anything like that. And I've only run into that a couple of times but it does happen.

    0:09:39.5 DD: Well, that's very, very helpful for those people who are in the sighted world and don't realize what kind of adaptations you have to go through to be successful. Breyanna, how do you get from point A to point B on the campus?

    0:09:54.7 BW: So my first day of campus of school, I made sure that I had a map immediately. As soon as I walked on campus, I went right to the disability coordinator and I was like, I need a map before I get lost. And luckily my sister had gone to the same college and she was attending at the same time as me. So that first day or so, when she didn't have classes, she was able to basically plan out a route. We would walk onto campus from a specific parking lot and she would be like, okay, "where are we now?" Kind of thing. And I would have to, obviously with her help, if I needed it, go and find my classes basically. And it was really, really hard, obviously, first time on a new campus, just trying to figure out which building is which, let alone which classroom is which. But finally, luckily campus is not that big. There's probably maybe seven or eight actual buildings that I would need, not including like dorms and like the dining halls and stuff like that. So it was pretty easy for me to narrow down at least what building I needed to be in. And for the most part, a lot of them had Braille on the outside of the rooms and stuff and not just Braille, but they had tactile numbers as well.

    0:11:32.4 BW: Or sometimes I would just sneak, just cheek and use my phone and take a picture of it, of the number just to make sure I was in the right room. It was really hard for... There's one specific building on campus that is pretty old. The room numbers are labeled on top of the door frame. So obviously I can't reach it, first of all and there's no Braille markings or anything on the side. So that's when I had to revert to, well, I'm in this building, I have to, my only landline basically was to use my cell phone and to take the picture of the classroom to be like, yes, this is the right room. But luckily now five years on campus. I like to think that I have it pretty good now. As far as where I go, I go to maybe two buildings now that, 'cause it's so late in my educational career that it's pretty specific as to what buildings I have to go to. And of course I would ask some people, if I'm walking and I'm not a hundred percent sure I'd be like, oh, just like what room number is this? And luckily everyone on campus, as soon as they see the cane, they're like, oh, okay. They're like, make the connection. And they're like, she's blind. I'm gonna be nice to her.

    0:12:54.4 DD: Did you have to take any public transportation to get to campus? Did you have to take a bus or make a transfer?

    0:13:03.8 BW: So there's the option. Luckily I live a half hour or so from campus and there is a bus that transports people back and forth. It's like every hour or so they travel from campus to where I live. But luckily either when my sisters, especially were going, they were able to drive me up there and be my personal chauffeurs. And now like my grandmother who's very kind is able to take me up and stuff but there is a bus option if I needed to in an emergency so.

    0:13:39.5 DD: Have you in your training with the orientation, mobility specialists been taught how to handle public transportation in cities?

    0:13:48.7 BW: Not specifically cities. I live technically it's a city but the population is very, very low. We maybe have like 7000 people maybe. So we have one bus and it runs throughout town every hour on a loop and it makes different stops. And I was able to have my orientation and mobility specialist. We did get on and we rode the bus once and it was just kind of left at that. I've never learned for instance, how to navigate a subway. I don't know what I would do at that point if I had to do it by myself or like I've never learned how to hail a taxi or anything like that. So that would probably be, if I was to ever move to a city, that would be my first priority is just learning how to be independent and not have to rely on people, especially now after I graduate, I'm not gonna be able to have my grandmother around or my siblings around or my family around to take me. I'll have my fiance but who wants to, I don't want to have to rely on him for my entire life. So I'm gonna have to learn how to figure that out for myself, I guess. So that'll probably be sooner rather than later that I'll have to get on that train.

    0:15:11.5 DD: Now when you graduate, what are you planning on doing? What is your major?

    0:15:16.3 BW: So my major right now is human services management. I tell people a lot like social work. There's so many different directions that you can go into. I thought about maybe trying to go in and run an adult day program for adults and the elderly with disabilities and stuff like that, just so they have a place to go during the day and to get out and become a member of the community. I've thought about working with people who are blind and visually impaired like myself, because I can relate to them and I know what they're going through and stuff like that. So I'm not a hundred percent sure in the direction I wanna go but I know for a fact that I want to help people. You know, I wanna make the world a better place, I guess.

    0:16:05.2 DD: Well I'm certain that you will. One last question. Has a telescope or bioptic been helpful for you at all to see distances?

    0:16:19.3 BW: Like my grandparents and we went and saw a musical and I have a vivid, vivid memory of using it to, you know, see, zoom in basically on the stage. And it was really cool because I hadn't been able to see, you know, facial expressions or specific movements or anything like that. So that's very one specific memory that has stuck with me.

    0:16:42.7 DD: Well Breyanna, that is incredible. I just have one other request and that is what advice would you give to somebody who is coming up the same way you did? Any specific recommendations that you might have as they pursue their education?

    0:17:00.6 BW: Definitely talk to someone that can help you. Like for me, it's people in the Student Success Center. My basically disability coordinator, Melanie Ryan is incredibly helpful. I go and visit her basically every day, whether it would be, you know, to have a textbook from a PDF to a Word document so that I can read it to having, you know, something in large. Definitely find that person for you who you can go to and you can vent and they can help you actually solve your problems, you know and to motivate you to keep going on and pushing and just have that someone that can be your backbone basically and to step up if you feel like you can't advocate for yourself that they could do it for you.

    0:17:49.8 DD: Well in closing, I'd like to thank you very much Breyanna for sharing your time with us and your very important information. And I'm sure that many of the people listening would love to talk to you. So we will include your contact information.

    0:18:04.4 BW: Of course.

    0:18:04.8 DD: On our website. Thank you very much. God bless and see you soon. The podcast is called Through Our Eyes. Make sure to like and follow our Discord channel, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok and let us know if you have any questions or have a topic you would like us to cover. We have tremendous things planned and we hope you tune in again for our next podcast. This is Dr. Droste saying good night to all of you on behalf of our staff, the PRRF. Thank you.