Learning Disability? Use What's There for You

I was accepted into a very prestigious university and accepted immediately. I thought, wow, this is awesome.

But I didn’t use the Centre for Students with Disabilities at all and that was a big mistake.

I was originally diagnosed with ADHD in grade 6 and then later, panic and anxiety as well. When I first got to university, I didn’t have trouble with anxiety at all because I was so excited. Of course, I knew about the Centre for Students with Disabilities, but they didn't do much by way of an introduction. Here's where I made my big mistake: you have to initiate it yourself. And I didn't.

Here I was in my first midterm, for a three hour exam in a huge room crammed with students. Everything seemed to be moving around me, everyone was fidgety, and there was no way to move. In high school, I could get extra time for tests and exams; I could get up, take a walk around, stretch, relax a bit. But I never realized how important that was, or even that I needed it. I couldn’t focus enough to sit there and finish the exam. So I never did finish it.

I failed my very first exam; I had never done so poorly on an exam in my life.

After midterms, I was passing all my courses, but not doing great. Mid sixties, high sixties, low seventies -- nothing that I would have to run away from. But I really wasn’t enjoying myself at all. The campus was too big: it took me forty minutes to walk to one of my classes, and there were no buses on campus. So you walk everywhere, and that takes a long time out of your day. There were other classes that you had to take the subway to, which also took up time. It was a big difference from living in my small town.

I realized I wasn’t happy and I discussed it with a few people. But when I came home at Christmas, it really sunk in. Then I went back to the University after the break and I thought to myself, I don’t want to do this anymore. So I called my mom and told her that I didn’t like this, didn’t want to keep doing this and thought I needed to do something different.

My mom came down and we went to a counsellor at the Centre for Students with Disabilities. That was the first and only time I ever went there. The lady suggested that I just do a clean drop-- drop right out of the university and then use my high school marks, mostly 90s, to get into a different university the next year. If I tried to transfer, my university marks wouldn’t get me in because they were mostly 60s.

On one hand, I am not sure if the result would have been any different had I gone to the Centre earlier. The city was too big, I didn’t like the atmosphere of the university, I didn’t like the people. It was very competitive, very cut throat, a lot of people were very rich and a lot of them had extremely different life styles than I had ever had. I hated my roommates as they were really untidy and dirty, but snobby too; one of them was a stripper by night, another didn’t speak any English, and I never saw the other one because she was taking seven courses, which was unheard of. All of this combined made for an awful experience. It was just not my life and not what I wanted for myself.

On the other hand, if I had gone to the Centre, my marks may have been a little better and I might have been able to transfer to another university rather than drop out. Maybe the whole process would have been less stressful and not as awful for me.

So my advice would be: if you have a disability, go straight to the centre and talk to them. It is up to you. They won’t know you have a diagnosis unless you tell them. They won’t know anything about you so get permission from your doctor to send the university your paperwork or they will not be aware of your situation. That’s what I did when I started my first year at a different university the next year. But that’s another story.