first experience

I left Muscat, Oman in March going to United States of America (USA) to complete my dream and make it become true. I went to study at Arkansas state university (ASU) planning to major in Computer Science. Unfortunately, the cabin crew at Atlanta airport forgot me which resulted in missing my flight to Arkansas but later on, someone helped me to find another flight to get there.

I arrived to ASU. Everyone was happy to meet me. I have started the English as a second language program (ESL) immediately. This program has 5 levels. Everyone who is non native English speaker should take this program.  Because my English language was not that good, I started with level 2 in March. In June, I have completed level 3 and I passed the ESL program by passing the TOEFL test.

Also, I have noticed that my mobility skills needed to improve in order to be more independent. For this reason, I have contacted the division of blind services to get mobility training. They gave me training for a week in ASU campus. In May, they sent me to Lions World Services for the blind (LWSB) to study there and this place was two hours away from my Campus. My goal for this trip was to be more independent so, I have studied a mobility advance course and an independent course. In this course, they taught me how to cook, how to sew the buttons in a shirt, how to organize my room and how to be more independent in life. Also, beside these courses they gave me an assistive technology course which was very easy and I passed it in one day. In addition, to improve my mobility skills and to help me more, the ministry of higher education has provided me with a handheld talking GPS device (Trekker Breeze). I have completed the training sessions in LWSB by the end of May.

Because my goal is to be independent, I have tried to prepare for the fall in the summer. I registered with Hadley school for the blind and they offer many courses for the blind to study either long distance learning or online. Also, I have registered with national library services for the blind and handicapped and they gave their members books with accessible formats such as: Braille, DAISY (digitally recorded textbooks which require to use a specialized DAISY playback system.), or large format. But, most of their books are not academic. To get more academic books, I registered with Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic: Accessible Audio books for students with visual impairment, dyslexia or learning disabilities (RFB&D) and Book Share. These two libraries provide the books with DAISY format.

In the fall of 2009, I got admitted to ASU and, I started the first semester. It is the most difficult semester for every student. Yes, it was very difficult. In the first semester, I tried to take as less hours as possible but as an international student in USA, the immigration system requires the student to take a minimum of 12 academic hours per semester. The most difficult thing that I faced was the courses accessibility. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to deal with one of the subjects which was Math due to the software the university is using to teach the subject. This software is not user friendly for the blind; I couldn’t use it by using any screen reader (speech application). As you know, my major is Computer Science which requires taking a lot of math courses. I have decided to transfer to another school that will hopefully help me succeed and get my degree.

                The education in America is different from Oman. In America, I attended Arkansas state university. The major difference is the Culture. It has lots of international students from all over  the world. It’s not like the universities in the Middle East where they have eastern students mostly.

·         The American people are very friendly, good natured and helpful . Also, if they know that you are disabled , they will try to help as much as they can to make you succeed .

·         Also, they are very respectful and they like to know other cultures  . When you visit America , you will notice that they are very nice and happy .

·         As a blind student , I realized that studying in America  is better  than middle east  from different perspectives :

1.       They always try to give an equal opportunity for everybody to have a chance to succeed.

2.       All the universities in America they have resources for disabled students (disability services ) to make the educational materials accessible.

3.       Beside the disability services there are some other organizations that takes care of the disabled human such as blindness like the NFB (national federation of the blind) and  AFB (American Foundation for the Blind) to help them achieve  their goals and succeed in their lives.

4.       Beside these organizations there is division of blind services which provide the blinds people with tools , devices and materials that might help them to make their life more accessible .

5.       The schools in America helps blind people to take any major that they desire regardless of their disability. In the Middle East they treat the disabled person as a n interference on the way.

6.       I hope that the Middle East service gets better than now and change their opinion about disabled people. Because disabled people can do better than the normal ones.