uni struggles & accommodation limbo
For a few years now, I have been studying law parttime next to fulltime work. I do this with a university specialized in distanced, online learning. I don't have to show up anywhere except for some exams at the end of the semester.
It's just been really tough this semester due to my new diagnosis and flare of my disease. I already took a break the semester before because symptoms started to become unbearable, I had no energy, and my dog had passed away. But this semester is even more tough, because while I made up a lot of disadvantage with being rigorously organized and using good days or weeks to cram a lot, the disease and medication side effects have torpedoed a lot of my planning. Especially around exams and a paper I need to hand in. I had taken two weeks off of work to write the paper, but in that time I became extremely ill from azathioprine, so no luck. I've since managed to write a bit after work every now and then, but it's been taxing, because work already takes away so much of my energized focus hours and it's due next week.
I feel like I am in a weird spot that universities and other places supposedly offering accessibility options and accommodations are not actually ready for. Reading the university's options and how to file the paperwork for it, it becomes clear they're mostly suited for externally physically disabled people that have this disability from the beginning of studying there or longer, or it's something temporary. Their accommodations seem to be more about being unable to write by hand, or wheelchair access. It seems easier to get accommodated if say, you are missing fingers, or your legs do not work.
They're not really ready or accommodating for more internal illnesses and disabilities that still have physical consequences - like mine. They're especially not ready for anyone trying to get accommodated for ADHD, autism, or depression - the university's Discord server has a channel for exchanging information on disability, and sadly, many in there said they had to stop studying because the university was not willing to help them.
They're also not ready for people who develop a chronic illness or disability during their time studying there, and have to handle the whole diagnosis, finding treatment or devices that work, applying for disability etc. all while the semester is already going on. They want paper work every beginning of the semester, no matter that your condition is chronic and will not change or become better. This sucks for people who develop it after the deadline at the beginning, but will need the accommodation at the end of the semester. This also sucks in general - I understand that people will need a few months of temporary accommodations for a broken leg with tendon involvement or so and then need to hand in again if they need more, but asking chronically ill people to hand in the same paperwork but renewed every six months is a bit of a joke.
The reality is: If you are diagnosed beginning or mid semester and are still trialing out treatments or waiting for custom fit devices, you're being told by doctors here that it doesn't yet make sense to file to get a proper disability status. I was told I wouldn't get a status yet because I hadn't failed enough drugs and not been on a seemingly working one long enough to see how many symptoms and handicaps even remain for me after I am on a drug that works. The drugs I take can take months to start working, and in that time, I will still have symptoms and need accommodation.
Most of the university's accommodations are most likely to be granted if you are officially disabled and have the paper to prove it. The one I need, specifically, is tied to it because it is only given "in rare cases" (which is also clownery, if you ask me). But I can't yet file, and if I file, it usually takes months to get a decision. I've been told most cases get denied the first time and you have to object and retry to get it. It can take a year. So, realistically, worst case with meds and filing, it might take me almost two years to get an official disability status. What does the university expect me to do in these two years? That's 4 semesters.
That's what I mean with accommodation limbo. You already need it, but getting everything in line to get them (drugs work, disability process can be started, you get a decision, you hand in the paperwork to the uni) is taking too long and you don't even know when exactly it will all line up. Maybe you end up not needing a disability status after you find something that works, but you did before that.
In general, I have to say that the accommodations don't look like equity to me. They look like something you develop when you are bound to do something by law but don't put any effort in and don't want anything to do with. It looks like making it possible for disabled and ill students to participate, but not for them to thrive or truly have the same chances as non-disabled, non-ill students. The whole offer and reasoning reads as if someone went "well, we cannot generally offer that, because healthy and non-disabled people would feel disadvantaged". I'm specifically talking about online exams. Online exams; the standard at that university (a distanced learning one!) when I started the degree because of Covid, and still kept up for some select classes, but mostly being switched to on-campus again for absolutely no discernible reason.
Now you can only switch to online exams for severe, special cases, even though it worked totally fine for everyone for 3 years. I'm still at a condition where going outside aggravates my symptoms severely and I am immunocompromised (both is why I WFH 100%) so I had to cancel an exam this semester that would be on-campus but that I don't have the qualifying paperwork yet to maybe get the chance to switch to online. I can already hear a whiny voice "What the fuck, we have to go there in person and they get to stay home and probably cheat? Soooo unfair!" If you truly feel threatened by sick people who cannot go outside, you are a clown. They're choosing to disadvantage others' education because of your sensitive feelings.
It's ridiculous. All that cannot be the extent of disability and illness accommodation for an institution that respects itself and its students, but I guess it is.
Published 17 Sep, 2024, edited 2Â days, 13Â hours ago