Accommodations

After having a bit of a break down last year, I finally agreed with the school counsellor to send out an accommodation letter just in case. But the problem I'm having now is, she told me I need to speak to each prof to confirm they got it and just a brief "I don't expect to need them but I will email you in advance if I do".

The thought of doing this is too much. They have it already -i can't! I think in a sense that's what makes this all real to me. But I made it through high school and 3/4 of college without this (I had anxiety problems all along just didn't recognize what it was). At this point in my program I'm in a very small class. I dread the idea of making this real and using it to say, write an exam in another room. I can't just sneak out, everyone would ask why I "didn't write".

Ahh the idea of talking to profs about this is making me panic. I can handle emailing them if I need to use an accommodation I think but I hate talking face to face and
I don't know how to do this!

Can someone else talk to them on your behalf?

I work with college students who have accomodations and as a teacher/faculty, I would do almost anything (within my capabilities) to help a student who needs accomodations. I actually had them when I was a student, even in college.

Most of the time, the professors are used to working with students are very helpful. Many times you don't even have to show up to the class - you can set up a time/day to take the exam in the tutoring center or the instructor's office that same day.

Students don't really notice that you aren't there. Most of the time, they are so focused on doing well and studying for themselves that they probably don't even ask why you did it. You can just say, "I worked with the instructor and took the exam". Or, "I'm all set" or even, turn the question around to say "how do you think you did"?

I like Hoping's idea to see if you can get an advocate. Many student disability centers have people who can coach you through this - is this something you can look into where you are? Email is fine, too - if that makes you more comfortable. Sometimes that works better anyhow if you aren't comfortable talking to them in person.

I talked to my school counselor today about the fact that I never talked to the profs directly about the letter and she said it was ok since they got the letter. Ideally, I would say "hey did you get my letter? This and this might happen" but I shouldn't lose sleepover having that talk and if I couldn't do it, I couldn't do it. So I feel much better after that.

Thank you for your replies

Thank you for your replies