Single Disabled Mom in University- An Update

I’m on my second semester of university, having taken my first course this past summer during the summer semester. Last semester I took one course and this semester, after easing myself into my studies last semester, I’m taking two courses.

I wanted to give an update on how that is going, some things I’ve learned along the way, a big mistake I made with huge ramifications, stresses I’ve been going through, and what I’ve done about it.

Last semester the course I took was Introduction to Social Theory, which was pretty interesting. It was very much text based, so I didn’t take any notes, and just read through the text book. The text book is in the local language but I had it in PDF form, which meant I was able to copy/paste it into ChatGPT and have it translate it into english for me, while still leaving the important terms in the local language so I would still learn those. After each chapter, I made a summary of the chapters to read through with the help of ChatGPT and read those to review. The test was online and open book, and I used ChatGPT to translate the questions for me and then to translate it back to the local language after I wrote the answers. While I could potentially have translated it on my own, just more badly, the test was timed, and I didn’t know I could ask for a time extension.

After the test, when I basically ran out of time, I uploaded what I thought was my responses to the test to the online portal for that, only to end up with a zero. Turns out that I uploaded the question sheet instead of my test that I’d worked hard on. All for nothing. I was in such panic. I asked them if there was any way to submit my file later and they said no, but there was a second date to take the test, and I could take it again, and the better grade would be counted. The second date just happened to be in the middle of my second semester in school, when the material from the first semester was no longer fresh in my mind. Oh well.

I studied hard for that, reviewing 85 pages of review, until my brain felt it would explode from information, and I took the test this past Monday. I think I did well.

But after that test, I started to get concerned about the next tests.

But first I need to talk about this current semester.

This current semester I’m taking Statistics for Students of Social Sciences and Introduction to Social Psychology. All of a sudden, I’m not just taking two courses instead of one, I’m taking two courses that are much harder. Statistics because of the math involved- I haven’t done math, real math, in about 22 years… and Social Psychology because of language issues.

Trying to take notes in the social psychology course was a real challenge for me- I’d write down notes but not understand what the teacher was saying. The language was hard for me. I speak the local language, I’ve been here for 20 years, but there are terms that I’m not used to, especially psychology terms, that just throw me off so much. I spoke to the teacher and asked her if I needed to know the names of the terms in the local language and she said that I did, but she suggested that I not take notes during the class, and just pay attention and try to understand, and then take notes from people that had been in the class previously, there are some people with really good notes, and rely on those instead.

I found out about a Google Drive with notes (and practice tests and glossaries etc….) from previous students, that have been vetted to make sure they were up to snuff, and now have been using those notes instead of writing my own, and it has helped me a lot. Now, instead of writing down notes in class, if the teacher says something that I don’t understand, I am able to look up what that word means instead of trying to keep up with writing the notes. Score.

The notes I then translated to English, keeping key terms in the local language, as I did with my previous course, and the notes were helpful and detailed enough that they allowed me to do the homework assignment we were given without needing to go to the textbook.

I was having a similar issue writing notes in Statistics, not not as much, but I got someone’s notes from statistics which have also been helpful.

But statistics is still really hard, and I need to practice the assignments more, but it’s been hard to find time to do them as a single mom trying to take care of the family, work, and I was also dealing with pneumonia for about 2 weeks after coming back from a trip to Rome. In addition to all that, I had upped the dosage of my medication Topomax that I’m taking for my intracranial hypertension caused by Eagle Syndrome, to the dosage I was supposed to be taking but had taken a while to finally up the dose, but once the dosage was up, I had such brain fog and was constantly tired that I had to go back down, and now I could focus a lot more on my schoolwork.

But then I found out that the fact that my test was online and open book last semester was a fluke and not something typically done in University here, that tests are in person and closed notes. This made me start to flip out and have panic attack after panic attack, such a crisis, because I was convinced that I would fail, not only because of the language, but because my brain fog makes thinking hard enough, let alone memorization.

I spoke to some people who suggested that I ask for accommodations on the tests, and the way I do that is get a letter from my specialist about my disabilities and how they affect my learning, and what accomodations I need on tests.

Unfortunately, the biggest help I’d need, open notes, isn’t exactly an option, but since running out of time was a big issue last time, especially because of the language issue, I got my psychiatrist to write me a letter saying that because of my ADHD and anxiety I need a quiet room with no distractions for testing and I need extra time, and ask for me to have access to a dictionary between English and the local language.

I wanted my rheumatologist to write something about my brain fog and ask for similar accomodations, but also about permission to be able to stand up and walk around during the test if my back hurts, etc… without it taking away from my test time, but my rheumatologist won’t be back in the country for another 2 weeks and I am not sure I want to have to pay for an appointment just for that if I already get the accomodations based on what my psychiatrist wrote…

Anyhow, I was pressed for time because of the acommodation requests don’t get submitted soon enough in the semester they’ll be rejected, and the time to submit them has been nearing to a close.

Yesterday I got the message that my request for an extension for testing time and a quiet no distraction room were approved, that I get an extra hour on tests, but was told that my request for a dictionary would have to be sent via a different means, through the department of new immigrants. I wasn’t sure if it would count, because an immigrant of 20 years isn’t a new immigrant, but I just was told today that my request for a dictionary was approved.

I’m still incredibly stressed by this; I had my son print up the practice sheets from my statistics class thus far, and its 65 pages (together with the answer sheets) and I need to practice them, and for my social psychology class there is so much information that I need to start studying already now, reviewing the notes, so I don’t get brain overloaded when it comes time to study for the test…

But at least I got these accommodations under my belt for now.

The rest I’ll deal with another day. This is a big win that I’ll be celebrating.

Any of you went back to college as a parent? What were your biggest challenges? Any tips?