Hi Everyone!
Did you all miss me? 🙂 I haven’t written in so long because I’ve been bombarded with homework and midterms! Besides all the reading and writing I’ve had to do, I’ve also had to study hard for midterms. Last week I had one midterm for my journalism class and one for my psychology class on Wednesday. I felt SOOOO overwhelmed that day! They weren’t too hard, but all the studying I had to do was kind of tough. As one of my psychology classmates pointed out, “at this point most of us are sleep deprived!” I sure was! 🙂
How did I take my exams? Well, I scheduled them with DRES — the office for services for students with disabilities at U of I. I could have scheduled them with my instructors or taken them with my classmates, but I decided to take them at DRES to insure I had extended time to finish them — I am allowed twice as much time as the other students. Here’s how the process works: my instructors and I negotiate a time that will be convenient for me to take the exam. After that, I schedule the exam with DRES, and they then contact my instructors to get a copy of the test. Since I requested to do both exams on a computer, my instructors emailed the electronic copies of the exams to the testing center at DRES. In order to read and answer the exams, I used JAWS for Windows (JFW.) For those of you who are unfamiliar with JAWS, it is a type of software known as a screen-reader. Screen-readers make my computer “talk.” JAWS announces the characters I type. It also reads email messages, Microsoft documents, and content on WebPages out loud to me.
Finally, it’s time to take the test and hope the computer doesn’t act up on you! Unfortunately, it did act up on me during my journalism exam, but that’s a complicated story! The staff at the testing center are responsible for turning in my answers to the professors.
The important thing is I finally took those midterms. Now, I’ll have to wait till next week to find out how I did! I have a philosophy midterm two weeks from now, and I’m SOOO excited for that (not!)
Well, please leave any comments, questions, suggestions, concerns, or whatever you wish to tell me!
Have a great rest of the weekend!
Tags: Computers, Exams, JAWS, Journalism, Psychology
Sandra The Future Journalist 
October 12, 2009 at 05:44 |
If it helps at all, I always found midterms more difficult than final exams. Finals are more “organized,” you don’t have to attend classes while you take finals plus they give you a whole day off from classes just to study. Midterms you have to squeeze in between all the other things you are doing, going to class, etc. So once you get past the dreaded philosophy exam, you’ll be past what I always considered the most trying time of the whole semester: midterms. CONGRATS!
October 12, 2009 at 09:30 |
OMG! Thanks for that helpful advice — it certainly made my day! 🙂
October 16, 2009 at 04:04 |
Hi Sandra! I know how you feel! I had an exam today for one of my classes as well. Hope I did okay!!! I was looking at attending U of I in the Fall, possibly for their BSW program; actually. (haven’t looked at the campus) yet or anything as I live in California! lol. 🙂 But I was hoping to contact some people there in regards to services and stuff like that. How are the disability services there at U of I? Are you the only blind person who attends there? Can they provide braille/e-text for reading your books for classes? How’s the O and M services? Do you get that from the department of rehab or thorugh the school? Maybe we can corospond VIA e-mail about the different services that U of I offers? (I will be transfering out of the University that I am at now) long story. I was a Psychology major, but switched because the department assentually kicked me out because I am blind, and I have been wrongly advised for the passed year and a half. (the story goes on) but I’m not gonna put it here cause it would take up pages and pages of space! But maybe we can corospond through e-mail? (if that’s okay with you?) Hope your mid-terms went okay. I hate midterms! OY!!! (but IMO finals are like 10000 times worse!)
Take care,
Amber.
October 16, 2009 at 15:52 |
You know, those are all great questions! I have briefly answered some of them in previous posts, but I think I will write a post devoted to those topics. Check back soon!
Amber, I’m more than happy to correspond with you via email — I just sent you a message.
October 18, 2009 at 22:12 |
Honey, we all have to go through it sometimes. I’m sorry I haven’t commented back to you on my blog. I don’t know how to moderate and I can’t get to my dashboard. I’ll make a new WordPress site, promise. Hey, Sandra! I am in the middle of my Senior Project and have decided on two Christian colleges: 1. Olivet Nazarean University (I hope I spelled that correctly), 2. Moody Bible Institute. My blessings go to you on your mid terms. Bye.
October 19, 2009 at 08:25 |
Good luck on your college choices! Once I get the philosophy exam over with I’ll be sooo relieved… At least until December! 🙂
August 4, 2010 at 16:17 |
[…] November Sandra was managing very well during her first semester at U of I. She’d successfully completed her midterms, and her father and brother came down to Champaign to pick her up for Thanksgiving break. The […]
October 23, 2010 at 21:32 |
[…] graded midterms yesterday. I already explained how I take exams with accommodations in one of my previous posts, but I never talked about how I get grades and feedback from my instructors. Professors and TAs […]