College Days

Hello and welcome back! I always get a look of shock when I tell people I went to 4 different colleges. I jokingly like to refer to my time in college as the Indiana college tour. Kind of holds some truth to it. Sit back, relax and enjoy the tour….

My first acceptance was to Purdue University. I was excited to gain acceptance into such a great school even though I had pretty much bombed the SAT…standardized tests and I don’t go together. I was kind of surprised that I got accepted because my high school counselor had in a nutshell told me that I just wasn’t smart, and likely had a learning disability. What he based that on I’m not sure. I think he assumed because I was physically disabled, I also had a learning disability. I will give it to him that I was terrible at Algebra, but even if I did have a learning disability (which I didn’t), that or a physical disability was not a reason not to attend college if that’s what I desired to do! My main goal heading into college was to go into social work. I just wanted to help others. His voice stuck with me for years, and unfortunately I let what he said hold truth in my head for far too long. 

Move in day at Purdue

29 years later!

Purdue is, hmmmm well it’s big! Starting out, I had made a few accommodations for myself. I got a dorm room on the first floor, and only had to share a bathroom with one other room. I didn’t have to walk down a hallway to shower etc. That helped me a lot. Those were about the only accommodations I had set up. I was stubborn, and also dealt with my disability much differently than I do now. If you’ve read other blogs you know what I mean. My roommate was one of my best high school pals.

The first week of classes nearly broke me. The amount of walking I had to do was insane. One day, starting back to my dorm from classes it started pouring rain. I was soaked by the time I finally made it back, my umbrella had broken and almost took me down with it, and I also nearly got hit by a car that day. Everyone just ran by me trying to escape the downpour as if I didn’t exist. I felt invisible. I was rattled, and threw in the towel. I then got special permission to drive to my classes, and prime parking near the buildings (hey there has to be some perks to this gig, right?!) I was back in business. 

I had a major surgery senior year of high school where they took bone from my hip and fused it into my ankle. I had just barely finished the 4 month recovery period when I started at PU. Unfortunately, one of the screws drilled down into the top of my foot was starting to come out and causing a great deal of pain. I got the news a couple months into my time at PU that I needed to have surgery to remove this piece of hardware. I would need to do it over Christmas break, and would have to be on crutches starting 2nd semester. I had used crutches countless times before then, but I knew that navigating PU on crutches was going to be beyond challenging, even with the parking accommodations I had. I started looking at smaller schools, and ended up making the difficult decision to leave PU for Manchester University , a much smaller private university, also in Indiana. This would be school #2 on my college tour. I had the surgery before Christmas that year.

January rolled around, and I started 2nd semester of freshman year at Manchester. I didn’t know a single person at that school. I was on crutches and recovering, trying to navigate campus in the snow and ice. It was stressful and lonely. I made some friends there, especially one great friend. He is the reason I lasted as long as I did there, and he helped me out so much. During my time at Manchester, it was much easier to navigate, but it just never felt like home. I was visiting Ball State University nearly every weekend. My sister went to school there, as well as my boyfriend at the time. I had recovered from my surgery by February, and was in a lot less pain. I decided I wanted to leave Manchester after I finished the year out, and try Ball State. I know, I know…. crazy. So, that’s what I did. Stop #3, Ball State University. 

I attended summer school before starting my sophomore year, so that I wouldn’t be behind. During all these transfers I miraculously only lost 3 credits! I roomed with another one of my best friends from high school, and life was good. I had a lot of fun at Ball State, and it went smoother because I had the transportation to classes figured out from the start. I attended Ball State for a year. During that time, I unfortunately was dealing with some issues from the past that had surfaced and was really struggling mentally. I was depressed and for some reason decided I didn’t want to do social work after all, and went to a career counselor who informed me that I was best suited for a business administration major. Ummmm, ok! That sounded good to me during that difficult time. Trouble was BSU didn’t have that major. Next and final stop on the tour…Indiana University/Purdue University at Indianapolis, also known as IUPUI.

My first day of economics class I was having serious regrets. I felt completely overwhelmed. Luckily, I recognized that and switched back to my social work major, which was the right choice for me after all. I was living in an apartment with another bestie from high school. We had a blast, and I ended up graduating college in 4.5 years with a 3.7 GPA. My degree was from Indiana University. I kind of wanted to go and smack my high school counselor in the face with it, but instead I exercised restraint. 

Senior year of college 

Attending college definitely took humble courage as someone living with a disability. Everywhere I looked, there was no one just like me. I was in a league of my own. Going somewhere where I didn’t know a soul was scary. I’m really proud of my college degree, and all that I tackled during college. Juggling a disability with everyday life is hard. Being a college student can be hard. It just makes the victories a little bit sweeter, that’s all.  

P.S. Technically, I attended 5 colleges because I started my masters degree, however that was in Tennessee 🙃 I have sweatshirts from each college I attended just for proof, and my parents….well they made it through all of that too. 💚