If you become a freshman at any college, there will generally be some sort of freshmen orientation. My orientation lasted nearly a week, during which time I met all sorts of new people, learned the layout of my school, and discovered student activities. It was fun and exciting for the most part, but incredibly chaotic.
Before I go into all the specifics of my freshmen orientation, let me tell you about what I did before I arrived on campus. First, I researched the Office of Accessible Education. This office takes care of things like accommodations in class and living in dormitories. They make sure I have a strobe and horn fire alarm, that also vibrates the bed, and that my resident directors know about my hearing loss. Second, I found out that there was a second Office of Diversity and Access. This office takes care of communication access at recreational events, such as the freshmen orientation. They make sure organizers know that I need the speakers to use the microphone and they arrange CART for some of the large lecture events. I emailed and met with both offices before the start of orientation; however, it was still up to me to tell my peers about my hearing loss.
Hearing loss can be an invisible disability, especially for someone like me, who is primarily oral and has long hair that hides my hearing aids. People do not realize that I might need help communicating. It was tough to figure out how to share this with my fellow freshmen, without sounding like I am looking for sympathy. I have learned from past experience that it’s much easier to let people know in advance of communicating, because once the communication starts flowing, it’s hard to interject “Help!” “Slow down!” “Please repeat that!”
My school created an accepted freshman FaceBook page long before school started. Many freshmen posted short intros about themselves, e.g. where they were from, their hobbies and other interests. I decided to take the plunge and put it out there…
Before I go into all the specifics of my freshmen orientation, let me tell you about what I did before I arrived on campus. First, I researched the Office of Accessible Education. This office takes care of things like accommodations in class and living in dormitories. They make sure I have a strobe and horn fire alarm, that also vibrates the bed, and that my resident directors know about my hearing loss. Second, I found out that there was a second Office of Diversity and Access. This office takes care of communication access at recreational events, such as the freshmen orientation. They make sure organizers know that I need the speakers to use the microphone and they arrange CART for some of the large lecture events. I emailed and met with both offices before the start of orientation; however, it was still up to me to tell my peers about my hearing loss.
Hearing loss can be an invisible disability, especially for someone like me, who is primarily oral and has long hair that hides my hearing aids. People do not realize that I might need help communicating. It was tough to figure out how to share this with my fellow freshmen, without sounding like I am looking for sympathy. I have learned from past experience that it’s much easier to let people know in advance of communicating, because once the communication starts flowing, it’s hard to interject “Help!” “Slow down!” “Please repeat that!”
My school created an accepted freshman FaceBook page long before school started. Many freshmen posted short intros about themselves, e.g. where they were from, their hobbies and other interests. I decided to take the plunge and put it out there…
Fred Flintstone
I was nervous, but in the end, I received many thoughtful questions and offers from people to help me. By posting information this way, I let all 1,719 other freshmen know a little about me before we even met!
The orientation was very tiring and wore me out, not necessarily because of my hearing loss as my hearing peers were equally worn out, but because of the huge quantity of information and activities covered in such a short time span. There were campus and building tours aplenty, move-in day itself, first lecture of the year, mini sex and alcohol education play, encouraging diversity lecture, meetings with advisors and teachers, attending dorm meetings, crazy-late-night-playing marching band, and much more. I should not forget to mention meeting my peers and especially my roommate.
This was all very exciting, but my advice to future freshmen, deaf or not, is to communicate in advance what you need, sleep as much as possible so you don't fall asleep during the showcase of science classes, find some quiet places to regroup, and you don't have to follow the band until 2 am (even though it is fun)!
The orientation was very tiring and wore me out, not necessarily because of my hearing loss as my hearing peers were equally worn out, but because of the huge quantity of information and activities covered in such a short time span. There were campus and building tours aplenty, move-in day itself, first lecture of the year, mini sex and alcohol education play, encouraging diversity lecture, meetings with advisors and teachers, attending dorm meetings, crazy-late-night-playing marching band, and much more. I should not forget to mention meeting my peers and especially my roommate.
This was all very exciting, but my advice to future freshmen, deaf or not, is to communicate in advance what you need, sleep as much as possible so you don't fall asleep during the showcase of science classes, find some quiet places to regroup, and you don't have to follow the band until 2 am (even though it is fun)!
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