Melissa Cassidy
After six years at a blatantly inaccessible secondary school, sitting even more inaccessible exams, the time has come for me to finally move on to the uncharted territory that is higher education.
I would be lying if I said I am full of optimism that my university experience is going to be much better than school, despite hearing how much better others have found it.
As this column goes to press, I will most likely still be sitting staring at a screen with the handful of offers I have and continuing to debate with myself (and my poor mother) about what the ‘right’ path is for me. While the courses I’ve applied for are all generally related to English and creative writing, they will each look drastically different in play. For example, one of my offers is an online course which would allow me to study from home and give me the space to work on other things (like my writing and blogging). However, do I want to spend days working from my bedroom and miss out on what I’m going to class as the ‘stereotypical university experience’. On the contrary, going to a physical university is not going to be the same experience for me as the non-disabled students. Taking away the whole other conversation of living independently, will I find navigating campus exhausting? Will I struggle just as much socially, as I have at school? Unfortunately, these are unanswerable questions. Regardless of how many other disabled student experiences I’ve listened to, there’s no way I can accurately figure these questions out.
There’s also the huge concern of whether I will be able to have a social life at university. While I’m taking the academic side of things somewhat seriously, my biggest concern as an 18-year-old is genuinely whether I will be able to find people to go out with for drinks with or spend afternoons studying with. School has been a struggle for me in terms of friendships, despite having people in most of my classes that I’ll happily chat to, I’ve never had a group of friends. This is why it feels so vital for me to choose somewhere that I feel I’ll be given lots of opportunities to meet people, and why the debate over whether I go to an online university or not is so complex.
Ultimately, university is a stepping stone towards a career. I have so much I want to do in terms of work – writing more books, writing screenplays and scripts and hopefully even directing the things I’ve written. It’s not necessarily a career that I can get a degree in and be guaranteed a way into which is why this decision is so difficult. Going to university raises many questions for disabled people and I hope this insight into where I am is especially useful for others who are starting to consider their options.
About Melissa Cassidy
Melissa Cassidy discusses topics surrounding disability as well as her own experiences as a teenager with cerebral palsy. She has received a Diana Award for her writing which she uses to share her experiences and advocate for the disability community. Melissa has also published a children’s book, ‘Doodle the Poodle’s Big Day Out’ (published by Alder Books).
Visit her blog at: buttonsandramps.wordpress.com
Twitter: @ramps_and
Instagram: @buttonsandramps
