Attending College with Limitations

Finally! I am approaching the end of my sophomore year at AMU. We are at the halfway point in the semester so by all extents and purposes, I should be a junior by May. Six years ago I was wondering if I would ever start college, and now, I am tasting the delicious flavors of joining the ranks of the upperclass men. Wow! Let me pause and take a deep breath. *Sigh!*

In the beginning, I wondered if I'd ever get through Seton Home Study High School - after struggling to teach myself Saxon math and all the rest. So many doubts about the value of a homeschool education went through my mind at the time. I would ask myself questions like, "What is the point of getting a high school diploma? What's it going to do for me? Is it worth the trouble? Why does a handicap person like me need to finish high school?" The answer was: Being handicapped doesn't give a free pass to be a bum and waste your God-given ability to think for myself and to learn everything He has to teach me. With my disability, He took away my ability to DO many things for myself, but one thing He left me is the ability to think, to reason, and to learn. The Gospels speak of the man who was given one talent and he took that talent and squandered it. For me not to use the gifts God has given me with all of my limitations would be like squandering the talents and gifts I have been given. This is why I persevered in my high school education.

When I started college in 2006, Ave Maria was just a ten minute drive away and so Mom would drive me to classes two or three afternoons a week, depending on the course I was taking. She would wheel me out to the van and then lift me out of my chair and put me on the sofa bed of our Chevy Explorer van. Then she would lift the wheelchair in after she had buckled me in. And away we'd go! The classes were typically an hour or an hour and a half long. It was very fun to be present and engage in the classes with the other students! A student taking the class usually would take notes for me since I cannot use my right arm while sitting in my chair. The teacher would give me the exams to take home so I would take the tests and email the answers back to the teacher. The teachers are VERY accomodating at Ave Maria! I took Literary Tradition II (since I started in the spring and they only offered the second semester then) my first semester with Dr. Lylas Rommel and my friend Kate took notes for me, although she did not take the course herself. Kate was a junior at Ave Maria when we met. We met because she was in a wheelchair from breaking her ankle and I was curious to meet this girl who was in a wheelchair. It's not often I see people in wheelchairs - let alone a young person my age! So we met outside after Mass and became fast friends. Kate helped me get through Seton's English 12 which polvolted me into college. 

My first professor at AMU was Dr. Lylas Rommel and she is of German ancestry. A no-nonsense type. She was excellent at teaching her students the techniques for writing. When it came to writing a paper, she went through the steps very slowly and methodically but then she would proofread and point out where I failed to follow those steps in writing my paper, which I really appreciated and learned from. She boosted my confidence by making a point of telling me that I was well prepared for college and Seton had done well for teaching me how to write. As a homeschooler I wasn't sure if I had learned anything in homeschooling and she said that homeschoolers are more prepared for college than most students who go to school. That was very encouraging to me! I liked her style and I was mature enough so that I could handle her dictatorial manner. Most of the other students thought she was too hard on them but I didn't mind her. She was very nice to me and she saw that I paid attention to her.


It was a good beginning on the long road awaiting me!