hello and welcome to today's video of our mrs. failed teacher and I'm a
dyslexic and dyspraxic person so today I'm going to talk you through some tips
that I followed while I was at university just to make things a bit
easier to get through your degree so the first thing which might be quite
difficult for some people but you need to ask for that help I know of
perhaps a lot of you at school experienced self-esteem issues or your
shame to us help maybe even you might have been bullied but in university it's
an adult learning place it's much more mature you're getting help is a lot will
not listen it might not be easier you might have had a great time at school
but you have got special departments for help student feel over how a student
support department specifically or some places even have specialized dyslexia
centres their job is to help you so but remember help needs funding so that's
why you need to try and get this help sorted too early whether that's when
you've got that offer you've got that place or even
after results day if you're not sure where you'll be going
just get it sorted early because it can take a few weeks to get help put in
place especially with disabled students allowances which is what gives you the
funding depending where you're from I could take a month perhaps two months to
get sorted so you really need to get that in place as soon as you can tip
number two is to use technology to help you there's a lot of assistive
technology out there now the disabled students allowances will pay for quite a
bit of that technology if not everything you feel like you might need but there's
lots of different things you can use from simple things like Google Calendar
I use Google Calendar when I was at university to put everything in I'd need
to remember to do so my lectures were they were when they were I'd have email
reminders set up for my lectures for half an hour before if I had a really
bad sort of dyslexic memory day and I forgot I even needed to be somewhere it
tell me half an hour before so that was give me enough time to get from home to you
and you've either completely forgot and need you to do something and I also
all my assignment deadlines in there so that I'd have a
reminder say couple of days,before a week before
sometimes even two weeks depending on how much there was just in case I'd somehow
completely forgotten that I needed to work on a certain thing by certain times
so all these those little things helped me get round the fact I my brain is just
not really organized and then you can go to some more really techie things like
text-to-speech software the basic screen readers will read out everything to you
so it doesn't have to be a worry if you struggle to read those and if
you need for assignments or even if your dyslexia is so severe that you can't
read at all also you've got the opposite which is software taht's speech to text
so you does it'll write it out for you
I learned how to touch type eventually my handwriting it's still horrendous
so I didn't
use that as much but for some people especially with the pains you can get
the type in that could be really beneficial going on from that the third
thing I'd say is to work with your brain not against it now what I mean by that
is University it's a bit different from a levels level three courses and if you
had thought in that yes you've got your seminars you've got your lectures
perhaps you have practicals you have to go to but then apart from that
it's about learning independently now that means that you can think about
learning and doing the work in the exact way that works for your brain
so if being dyslexic means you can't sit in the library the night before like
some of your peers are doing it and do the full of silent because you can't sit
down your concentrate for them or you can't read that long you don't have to
plan everything out start early soon as you find out when I was at University
soon as I found out about an assignment I would start working on even a little
bit thinking okay what's a question about what do I need to do how long do I
think this might take so that I could plan in time if anything happened I'd be
prepared for that if I woke up one day perhaps enough enough sleep and I just
could concentrate the words on paper or couldn't read it'd be fun because I've
got so much time ahead I could just be like okay today is a bad day see what I
can do but it is no harm if I can't do anything my fourth
tip is don't be perfectionist well not necessary don't be a
perfectionist but don't think you have to get things perfect right away
especially with essays if you're sitting there spending time concentrating on
what do any tougher perfect first sentences essay oh no my paragraphs I
write my Spelling's not right I don't have the right grammar I mean not sure if I'm
on the right track the best thing to do is to work with that just do what I call
a brain dump put down everything you think might be relevant to this the
assignment question or this particular part of the zone get it down on paper is
this is worth technology comes in particularly useful because you could
just even walk about a room speaking with your speech-to-text software
rambling on about a topic and it would type it on the computer for you so you
wouldn't even have to be sat down but once you've done your brain go but then
you can work through it getting two paragraphs get it sorted rather than
spending the time of worrying is this work going to be perfect just get accept
there's going to be an editing process it's gonna take you that time to get
what you need but its the end product that matters not the way you
got to it and if the way you got to it might be a bit different from one of
your peers it doesn't have this lecture structure or another learning difficulty
that's fine you might you know if you get there in
the end you've got there that's what's important
and then my fifth and final tip is to recognize your limits now burnouts
common thing at university everyone forget it whether it happens to people
that you need to especially think about it when you do have a condition like a
learning difficulty like dyslexia dyspraxia because generally your brain
is using more energy to do the things you need to do cuz so you need to think
about your own health what you're doing to make sure you get the best you can
out of University so I'm not saying don't go out and do the fun stuff of
course I'm not saying that but I'm saying learn to manage it well obviously
going to university perhaps you've lived on your own before and only things but
perhaps it's your first time so sudden you've got to organize everything
and you need to really think about looking after yourself so get plenty of
sleep I know that if I have had less than six hours sleeping at night how
much coffee you put on me you know I wouldn't be able to write much of an
assignment I'd be having just practice events everywhere I follow things so I
know I shouldn't be doing that I should be trying to get as much sleep as I can
having a healthy diet you know get that balance make sure that you're doing
everything you can to stay healthy and then yes you're gonna have the bad days
way you should really struggling you know falling over over struggle maybe do
what you can to try and keep your physical health on a good place look
after yourself then it can make things just that little
bit easier to deal with see don't end up getting burnt out but those are my five
tips if you would like to ask me any questions about being dyslexic and
dyspraxia University feel free to comment below like and subscribe to the channel
I'll also pop links about plan to disabled students are quite a
complicated thing down below and yeah any other questions feel free to ask
thank you and mr failed teacher will see you on his next video bye