Step 1: Decide if College is Right for You
Identifying your Goals and Priorities
There are many reasons high school graduates choose to pursue a college experience, so it is important to identify what your reason is for wanting to go to college. Your reason will be the guidepost for the choices you will make related to which college you want to attend, the courses you hope to take, and the activities you hope to engage in while taking college classes.
You may be looking for content knowledge in a specific field, or perhaps hoping for hands-on experiences. You may want to continue your learning with peers your age, doing what your siblings and peers are all doing. You may want to increase your independence, make new friends, or develop work related skills. One, some, or all of these might be your motivation for attending college. Be sure you are able to tell someone what it is you hope to gain from the experience before you begin a search for a college or university.
Whatever your reason for going to college, please be aware that it will mean a lot of hard work and dedication. Make sure this is what you really want to do, and not just something someone else wants for you. Every college student has to be committed to going to college in order to be successful.
Step 2: Make a College Choice
Research and Making Contacts
Choosing the right college is often a daunting task for high school students. Starting early in researching possibilities is usually helpful. Check out various colleges and universities through website searches first, then plan a few college visits to see if the atmosphere and size is right. Try to combine informal visits, walking around campus to get a feel for the atmosphere of the learning environment, with formal visits, talking with campus personnel.
Make appointments with advisors or make contacts with anyone you might know who works at the postsecondary institution, including staff and/or faculty. Ask a friend to make introductions for you if you know someone who has connections with the campus, either as a student, neighbor, acquaintance, or through volunteer or work affiliations. Become familiar with the campus including the types of courses offered, the social networks available, the supports provided to students with disabilities, and student life on campus. Most importantly, do not be afraid to ask questions!
Transportation Considerations
Be sure to consider location and transportation. Having access to campus using public transportation may increase the likelihood of your participation in campus events outside of your regular class schedule. Otherwise, you may be dependent on someone else to get you to campus, and they may not be available to take you.
Know your Residential Options
If you would like to live on campus, be sure to check out the residential policies for student dorms. Most campuses will require students to be enrolled with full time status before applying to live in a dorm. What is considered “full time” may vary across campuses. For some it might be 9 credit hours, which is typically 3 classes each term, but for others it might be 12 credit hours (4 classes each term). Many students with more significant disabilities may only want to take one to two classes each term (3-6 credit hours).
Step 3: Discover and Create Supports
Know What’s Available
After identifying the college or university that the student is interested in attending, browse the website to identify possible supports. Be sure to check in to the services offered to any student first to see if those would provide sufficient support to you while attending college. Many campuses have learning assistance or tutoring supports provided at no cost to students. Also contact the Disability Services office to see the types of supports typically provided to students with disabilities on campus. If you feel you might need more support than what is typically available, then you may need to contact someone to help you develop mentoring supports specific to your needs.
Developing Mentoring Supports
To begin developing mentoring supports, contact individuals and offices that might have matching curricular interests, such as those in the helping professions. Possibilities include Deans, Department Chairs, or professors in social work, education, special education, nursing, or psychology, or even staff from the campus recreation office. Again, make contacts with anyone you know who might have an empathetic ear. If you know of a faculty or staff person who has a child with a disability, begin your conversations with them and see if they can lead you to someone who might be in a position to find support for your student.
Mentoring and Service Learning
When talking with professors, suggest providing service learning credit to students for mentoring. Service learning is one form of community based learning that many institutions of higher education are using to engage students in the community as part of the learning process. Service activities are integrated into academically based, credit bearing course work as part of the learning process. The service activities become a "lived, dynamic textbook" in service learning classes.
Community engagement is an integral part of the learning process in service learning classes. While the service is meeting a community identified need, it is also serving as a learning tool for students in the classroom. Students and faculty use the experiences in the community to deepen their understanding of course materials and content through active reflection and other assignments in the class. Providing mentoring supports to a student with disabilities is an excellent learning experience for students in a variety of majors to hone their knowledge and skills of working with and supporting individuals who have diverse needs.
If you intend to explore this option with a faculty member, plan ahead and begin this process at least one year prior to starting college. Professors need time to develop classes and course work and will be more likely to engage in a discussion around possibilities if they feel they have plenty of time to develop a service learning requirement.
(Information about service learning from the Scripps Howard Center for Civic Engagement and Nonprofit Development http://civicengagement.nku.edu.faculty.shtml#DSLretrieved January 6, 2008).
Connecting with Student Organizations
Another option would be to see if a student organization might be interested in mentoring as a form of philanthropy. There does not need to be a formal mentoring program on campus in order to find mentors that can help you either in class or after classes. Even posting signs for volunteer opportunities might help you identify someone interested in mentoring. If the college or university has a Student Council for Exceptional Children (SCEC) chapter, that might be a great place to start, but certainly other groups might be interested as well, including sororities and fraternities. Again, planning ahead is a key component to developing mentoring supports on campus.
Paid Supports
Paying someone to provide you with support is another option you may want to explore if you have the financial resources. If not, paid support may be possible through your state’s vocational rehabilitation office. Contact your local Vocational Rehabilitation office to see what might be available in your area. The upside to paying someone to support you is that the support person is more likely to be more consistently available because her/his paycheck depends on it. The downside to paying someone is that the relationship may be strained or feel contrived, instead of naturally unfolding between two people who develop mutual interests.
Mentoring begins with an idea and a desire.
Keep talking with people because you never know
when a resource will be unveiled.
Missy Jones, Ph.D.