 Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Kristen. I am a rising fifth year PhD student in the macromolecular science and engineering program as part of the College of Engineering. And one brief thing about myself is that I identify as someone who has both invisible and visible disabilities. I'm Isabelle. I am a second year PhD student in the engineering education research program. And my main focus of research is engineering students with disabilities. Hi everyone. My name is Ava Armour. My pronouns are she, her. I am currently a master's student on leave from the higher education master's program. And I also work in disability services at Michigan. I identify as having non-apparent disabilities, including neurodivergency. Thanks, y'all. Okay, so to start us off, would you please share with us what you wish you knew in your first year here? I wish that I knew in my first year that services for students with disabilities, or I think many of us will probably refer to as SSD throughout this, is able to purchase assistive devices and like furniture and stuff to support students. For my first year, I was, I knew that if something wasn't working out with an accommodation that you could reach out to SSD kind of whenever you need to, to set up a meeting and talk. Before that I just set up the initial first meeting at the beginning of the semester and then never reached out again, but you can do that and people are want to help you. This is Ava. What I wish I knew coming into graduate school is that I struggled with imposter syndrome quite a bit with the amount of effort I had to put in to get work done compared to my cohorts and cohort mates. And I remember, I wish I knew that everyone else is going through it too, even though they may not show it. And that there's a robust disability community here that you can talk to. I wish I knew that in my first year. Thank you. So now that you shared what you wish you knew in your first year, can you share with us what you wish you had done in your first year here? Yes, so I wish I had established my healthcare sooner when I coming from out of state. So, you know, establishing new doctors, especially primary care and specialists. I think it's very easy once the semester starts to become overwhelmed and let things kind of let's say get backlogged. And so I wish I had done that as soon as possible. I agree with that. And also, I wish I had met with SSD sooner in the semester than I did. I did. I don't think I met them so around mid semester and by then classes have already started. Which would have been nicer for me to meet at the beginning and discuss things and have things ready and prepared, like have the letters prepared and documentation prepared to let my instructors know. This is Eva. What I wish I had done in my first year was like schedule block my weeks out and get connected with the SSD academic coach sooner. And they, so then I could have better allocated energy in different places without tiring myself out. Thank you. Thank you. So now that you've shared what you wish you had done in your first year, would you please share with us what were the best things that helped you when you first got here. So specific for me, I utilized what's called the managed care center through you of them, which is kind of to my understanding connected with our grad care health insurance. And they kind of help navigate insurance concerns or finding specialists and things of that sort. And then specific to the College of Engineering, there is a facility there called the care center, which also has like, in addition to SSD or so I guess separate to SSD additional kind of resources for navigating tough situations and for me that was navigating grad school as someone with a disability. I agree care, the care center is really helpful and I also found connecting with advisors and administration within my program early on is really helpful and kind of managing or understanding and managing that the expectations I had and planning out what I needed to do to like accomplish the list of things or like proceed in the program. This is the best thing that helped me in graduate school, genuinely was connecting with the disability community. And we had, at least one group has regular meetings every other week and it was a place to where I didn't feel isolated in my experience. And then additionally, the student ombuds person was extremely helpful and in helping me navigate nebulous campus resources and what to do when things happened. Okay, thank you. Thank you. So after this, y'all now we're going to move into Q&A where y'all have the opportunity to ask all of the questions that you have for our panelists. I want to actually first as we transition into the Q&A, my colleague is going to place our evaluation survey in the chat, and I'd like to ask for you to do me a favor and just copy just open the link now, so that you'll have the tab ready and waiting for you when we're done here. So we'll move to this Q&A by keeping stack, if you'll remember. And for those of you who missed it, it's just going down the line of those who flag that they have a question and the order of appearance. And there are three ways to get on the stack you can use the raise your hand function and I'll call on you or write stack in the chat and I'll call on you, or you can write your question and I will ask the question for you. You can speak slowly so that the closed captioning can capture all that you have to say. And for those who haven't please change your name to the name you registered with so that we know that you're here. And we may not get to have your question, but we will be providing the panelists email addresses at the end of the Q&A. So you can reach out to them personally with any unanswered questions. Okay. And so, while our audience members get all of their questions together, I have a question for you panelists. What surprised you the most here at Michigan as a student with disabilities or what was unexpected about this experience? For me, it was a little unexpected how inaccessible some of the laboratories can be. Unfortunately, so working in a wet laboratory space, there's a lot of things to navigate. But when you find the right resources, they can make that space more accessible. And so some of the resources that I would include in that would, I would always start with SSD. But I would also say that like the building manager is very helpful as well. And I'm surprised by all the different programs and groups and people that seem to be interested in disability advocacy or research or things like that. My previous institution, there wasn't anything like that, but here in my second semester here, I, there was a disability visibility symposium, and they had people present. And got a cool book to read in it. So that was just really cool. And it was a good surprise to have that here. This is Eva. The something that surprised me about Michigan was, well, for context, I came from an institution that has had disability services since 1940s. And when I came here, something that surprised me beyond just some physical inaccessibility was that there are a lot of professors and university members that are interested in disability as a disability studies as a, as a topic of research. However, they don't have a program focused on disability studies. And then another thing that didn't surprise me is the amount of activism that occurs on Michigan's campus regarding disability. That was really pleasing to see and seeing that the disability community is not just like a present community on campus but a very active one. Thank you. So I'd like to know how do you manage the inevitable journey of figuring out like work-life balance and time management and stress management, especially as a person with disabilities. How, what has that journey been like for you? I would say my most important piece of advice is that the path should be flexible. So what you may expect or want to achieve may not always be realistic. And so something that I struggled with a lot in my first year was wanting to work as many hours as my colleagues wanting to be present in the lab and show that I was making as much progress. And I rather quickly found out that I couldn't do that, you know, my body was not going to allow me to do that. And so remembering to give myself grace and accept your limits. Don't, don't push them if you don't have to. I think having or finding an advisor or other people in your lab who can understand what's going on, understand that. Like for me, I needed to take some time off or some things and they were very flexible and supportive supporters of me and so that helps a lot. So just having people who were, I guess more open to changes and open to like my different way of working sometimes. This is Eva. One of my disabilities primarily impacts executive function and things like time management. And something that helps a lot for me was having accountability bodies, scheduling in times when I could work, like alongside other people on different things like they'd be working on different things but just near each other. And if my friends found I was getting distracted or getting discouraged, which is a really frequent thing for me when I was writing I got very discouraged. They, we would check in on each other if we saw that. Additionally, using, I use my Google calendar, religiously. And that helps me gain a lot of, or like realize what what I had the capacity for that day, and knowing that we'd have seven to three hour classes from seven to nine. I would be able to plan my schedule around those classes. So things were a bit more complicated with an internship. However, working with my supervisor, not necessarily disclosing disability, but working with my supervisor on how to be a student and work somewhere as well was really helpful so find finding good mentors who have also walked the walk is this was really helpful. So speaking about disclosing disabilities. What has that experience been like for y'all. When do you when don't you when do you find it necessary do you find it necessary. What has it been like to be a student with disabilities in your department. Who do you, who do you disclose to or who do you feel the need to. Yeah, so I think that this extremely situation dependent but in my case. I rather quickly disclosed some of my disabilities I have actually undergone three different orthopedic surgery since becoming a PhD student at Michigan so there were various times of being on crutches being in a wheelchair navigating a medical leave of absence for one of the surgeries and things like that. And that made it pretty necessary to, you know, disclose that I am, you know, being faced with X, and X will not be going away, but, you know, X is going to require qr and s treatments, and that's going to take me away. So for me, disclosing my disabilities were kind of empowered me to advocate for myself more strongly. And I would say that like, you know, disclosing to my lab mates as well has been something that I found beneficial because you know, I find it easier to ask for help when I can justify why I'm asking for that help so like, I have a lot of joints to advocate so sometimes like reaching up high could be problematic and so I would, you know, working in a wet lab space again would often require me like, can you get this for me and it was something that was occurring so frequently that I, I felt more comfortable just kind of disclosing situational and I feel when I feel comfortable disclosing to someone that I'm working with like my advisor or someone on my research team, I will disclose to them but sometimes I make the decision not to if I don't know the person well. That's just something for me sometimes I don't disclose or if I'm not working closely with them and I don't think they, you know, need to know my instructors. I don't always disclose what my disability is, but if I send in my accommodation letter just to kind of let them know like these are my accommodations. Initially I usually do not disclose my disability to them. This is Eva I genuinely do not disclose my disability. But it's very much situational in a disability space I will disclose my disability if I feel comfortable. But unfortunately, when I got to graduate school. I thought that it would be a safe place to disclose in the workplace and unfortunately it wasn't. And so I usually err on the side of caution with disclosure. And for me with my specific disabilities and how I present. And a lot of people frequently respond with oh I wouldn't have expected that or you talk so well, kind of thing. So, which can feel really ableist sometimes. So, at least for me I disclose if I feel like I have to. And then sometimes to friends and some cohort mates but unfortunately in my program. There was an absence of disability. Like literature when studying DEI and I felt like I did a lot of the educating and in that educating it became pretty clear to most people that I had disabilities. So there's sometimes where you may like not intend to disclose but the topics you choose to talk about will reveal things. So, disclosure. For me genuinely I will, I will caution disclosure usually, but if you're in a welcoming space that's that's a whole different story it's very situational. Thank you for that. I would like to ask about the, what's what I have heard from others as the unfortunate burden of having to educate others around you in order to try to exist as your full self. And what has that been like for y'all. Yeah. So educating is the number one word I would use. For me, a lot of my educating has come through asking for things basically so you know more ergonomic furniture and things of that sort and you know even my PI is like, well why would we need a wheelchair accessible sink if you would only be using it for three months. And like, things like that and it's like, well I may, I probably won't be the only person ever to come through this space that would benefit from this. So, a lot of them. I would just say in general in the physical sciences there's a less flexibility to change. I think they're they're more rigid in their mindsets and so if it's functional for most, it can sometimes come across that they think it is functional for all. And so that is something that I have worked on with my advisor I've worked on with others in the department and things like that. But it's, I wouldn't use the word demeaning but it, it is exhausting. That is the word. I guess I have a little less experience feeling like I have to educate others. Most of the people I interact with are familiar in some way with disability studies or have read like some research papers about it or something like that so that very few people interact with are like at a level where they are not. They like don't know anything about disability or the disability community. I do feel like I'm the main go to person in my lab for people when they have questions about disabilities because that's like the main area focus of my research and I have to read a lot of books read a lot of papers about that and so people will come to me and ask for resources and I don't mind sharing that with people. This is Eva, I, um, yeah the burden of educating others. When you're here to be educated is really exhausting, like, like Kristen said, and that genuinely is one of the things that had started to burn me out pretty quickly. However, when you are educating and people are receptive and put things in action from what you've said and how you've educated. That's a extremely rewarding feeling. And I center that in all of my work now. Since I've been on leave, I still do disability education around campus through an organization and when you when you see that that light bulb turn on and make things a little bit more relatable to folks that might not have disabilities through like comparisons and analogies that that has been a very rewarding experience. However, during like while in graduate school it's unfortunately like for I like to say that it's not your responsibility to educate people. But hopefully finding a group of folks to rally behind you in your educational efforts this will be helpful like for me I had two cohort mates who are absolutely amazing. And also other people with disabilities, who, when I got really tired and couldn't. They, they really helped out a lot and we made a lot of changes towards accessibility in our, in our school. So, there's the disability community is very wide and there's education here at Michigan. And there's a lot of opportunities to connect on regarding disability education. However, it's, you're here for a degree. And sometimes you can get caught up on the, the educating side sometimes and I think I burnt myself out a little bit, focusing a lot on what what was not right versus what was going right. So, yeah. Thank you. Okay, so speaking of burnout and how easily it can come if we're not careful. How do y'all rest, how do y'all find space as a human being outside of being a grad student, what has helped you just, you know, make sure that you have a full of like a full life rather than just like the life of an academic that most of the time. I feel like grad school wants to tell you is the only the only life to have. Okay, I will preface this with this is probably not the right decision for everyone but my first month of grad school, I decided to adopt a senior dog that was in not the best health. He didn't need a lot of walks he couldn't go on long walks. I always had a reason to leave in the afternoons, I couldn't stay on campus for an unreasonable number of hours because I had something depending on me. And that was a great boundary. But again, I don't necessarily recommend getting a pet within your first month of graduate school unless maybe that's something you feel prepared for. Other, you know, beyond that, I have a pretty friendly lab space so we will often spend time together actually outside of work I know that it's not something that happens in all lab spaces are all, you know cohorts but having friendships that exist outside of the nine to five or whatever hours you're working is really valuable. I often try to try something new out in the city. So, going to a new place in an arbor or trying new food. At least every few weeks. Sometimes I go to the same place that I know I like. But like, there's ice cream places with interesting flavors there's a lot of restaurants. And in terms of like stopping like balancing work and other things I have it like, I made it pretty clear with the people I work with like at 4pm. For me that's the time where I stopped working. I thought for the time where I'm. If I am like working, I'm not productive so like, I decided I'll just stop at 4pm so I could go do something else. So that's usually when I'll like go for a walk and explore. Go to the library. Yeah, things like that. Eva. The something that I did that I wish I had done when I when I wasn't on leave was I joined an ensemble like a band I play French horn and so I joined like a community band in the area. And so I knew like every Thursday at seven to nine I was going to be playing music. And right now I work full time in a while on leave. And I have found that is trying, trying to find like going to trivia is something that I do relatively often as well. There's a lot of campus eateries and like places to get drinks that have events that are like trivia or like occasionally there's like nerd nights where things will be talking about Star Wars or something. And then I also adopted two cats in my in my first semester of graduate school. Coming home to them and then waking up knowing I have to feed them and cleaning around them. It's helped me like exist in my apartment and not just like existence in a mess which is what I had done in the past. So it's another like accountability buddy kind of in a way with the with the pets to. I had a service dog in the past and when that was mostly an undergrad by no if I had had him and then graduate school. He would have just the active caring for him like Kristen said was it would have. It was a way to set set those boundaries to a reserving one night a week to do something fun, or to just hang out, listen to an audio book, watch a movie, do something like your, you should be allowed a weekend, or allowed a day off. Contrary to some expectations I would say. Definitely definitely don't have to expectations trick y'all because they'll try to. What do you guys. Is there anything that you wish that you knew sooner about campus about the facilities about the culture of being here. Yeah, so one exciting thing I guess that SSD offers is if you have a like handicapped placard for your car. And you bring that to the parking office on campus SSD covers the cost of a student blue parking permit. And the entirety that your placard is valid so even if you have like a temporary one and that has made campus a lot more accessible for me. And in addition to that, oh, I guess I should clarify blue parking is considered like the best parking on campus so it, it gets you access to like the handicapped spots that are like near your buildings. Oh yes, good point about this is for students only. In addition to that SSD offers through the university as well, a pair of transit services. That's not something that I have personally utilized but I'm not sure if any of our other panelists have, but they're able within a certain mileage range of campus to do scheduled live pickups and drop offs, which can be really helpful. For me, I wish I would have known about a lot of the student groups on campus that were involved. You just believe I didn't know about any. When I first came here. But I also, I didn't go to any of the student days where they have all the clubs outside so they might have been there, and I didn't, didn't go so I didn't see them but I think. I knew about those groups earlier on and was able to like meet people and get more involved sooner. I think that would have helped me just feel better being on campus and just having people that I could talk to, and maybe could understand some of the things I was going through. This is Eva. I also wish I knew more about like disability related student organizations on campus, but something that I wish I knew I could do that I recently started doing is SSD has a branch. It's under their unit called adaptive sports and fitness with various sports like wheelchair basketball and wheelchair tennis, and they have drop in practices where community members can drop in and play of all abilities, I was always exempt from PE growing up so I never thought I could do sports and just going to those events have have has been like, I'm really encouraging and lightning experience for me. Like, and it all relates back to like connecting with more people with disabilities and finding community there. Michigan, Michigan, and disability at Michigan is it's rapidly changing and it's get it's really exciting. So, then also, I wish I knew about Argo Park and the here on river, and the kayaking that in tubing that you can do there, like I love that. And you only get a few months of warmth during the semester unless you stay here over the summer. So, definitely try, try going to Argo Park or Gallup Park. And Arvor is blessed with so many amazing parks. So, I would definitely explore the town. Thanks, y'all. Thank you. Would you be able to share with us what if you have experience with it, what the accommodation process looked like for y'all. I think I'm going to let the other panelists speak because my accommodations were put in place before they even changed to their new system. So I'm going to, if there's a specific question I'll chime in but I'll pass. Eva, I enrolled in SSD. I'm sorry, Isabella, if you were going to go. I enrolled in SS with SSD. The summer before I entered graduate school so July 2021. They had just implemented a new system called accommodate. And the process for me, having had accommodations in undergrad was relatively easy. You go to the website, you fill out a information form. They ask a lot of questions about like sort of what are the barriers that you experience. What accommodations, if you've had any in the past have worked for you on what other ones are you interested in exploring. I of course ask for medical documentation. But you don't need that to meet with someone to start at least when I started I'm not sure if that has changed now. And then, like I met with my coordinator a few weeks before school started and then start filled out a full accommodate profile and that's where you get your letters. They used to be called visas. And in accommodate you can apply specific accommodations to certain classes. And I just applied all of them to every class even though I knew I wouldn't have exams I still had an exam accommodation. It was really easy and but something that I a barrier that I found was the application was very long for me, and I thought that I, I, I think I ended up completing my profile my accommodate profile in like, September, or later, it by asking my coordinator to schedule a meeting with me and sit with me while I fill out the profile. And that that got me to get it done and like I'm so thankful that she sat with me for that and then. Additionally, I continuously met with my coordinator throughout the semester most folks just meet with them once a semester once a year. I consistently met with her to determine what was the, what were the best accommodations for me at the time. And like which ones were working and which ones weren't. So, yeah. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you for being so thorough, Eva. You spoke about earlier about the inevitable right of passage that is imposter syndrome. I feel like that grads graduate students go through how all my to all my panelists how has your journey been with that. How have you overcome it have you yet. What's the process been like what does it feel like and what have you done about it. Imposter syndrome is something that I still battle every day, you know, going into my fifth year I often feel like I'm never going to graduate I feel like the work that I do isn't as strong as some of what my lab mates may be able to accomplish. I find it easy to think about like, well so and so was able to publish in this journal which is this much a higher of an impact factor than what I was able to publish in. But what I've been trying to do lately is remember that I'm going to get a job someday I'm going to get out of here someday and it'll happen when it's time for it to happen. Just sometimes, you know, I get as much as writing one sentence in a day and other times I can set up 25 different experiments, but both of them were important days. Something that helped me when I was feeling this way. Kind of when I first even just started before I came to grad school when I started thinking about even trying to go or applying and like not feeling like I was the right like the right student to go to grad school. Just kind of talking to myself and telling realizing that there is no right student there's no right thing everybody's different and it's hard not to compare yourself to others but and I'm still working on like not always doing that but you know try not to always compare yourself to other people are doing because you're going to be doing different things. You have different timelines different goals. And also recognizing that like just feeling for the specific feelings I had of like not being good enough or smart enough like real recognizing that really nobody's good enough or smart enough like everybody needs help with things. Nobody is like a best at everything can do everything and and that's okay. This is Eva imposter syndrome is really hard. I would say, like, I, I in when I during when I was in graduate school I think I submitted maybe two papers in total. And a lot of that was because I struggled with imposter syndrome, starting a sentence and not feeling like it was good and restarting and sitting at a blank page just staring at it. And while I saw my cohort mates just like finish the assignments and move on with their lives. And something that at least has helped me. I mean, like, has been, you know, knowing that at least with like a social science program, when you're submitting papers they want. They're not expecting perfect perfection from the start. And that sometimes, sometimes for me I just felt like sometimes I just I felt like maybe I wasn't good enough or maybe that I was admitted for other reasons beyond my merits or like other things like that but And being with and being real with like other people that have some similar identities that had helped me out a lot like I quickly joined like the Asian and Pacific Islander organization in my school and joined like disability And that helped me realize that like, you know, everyone's going through imposter syndrome I'm not alone. And then additionally, like some sometimes when I was sitting in class it was it would get I would feel like I'm really not able to pay attention right now like what's going on, having just sometimes talking with the professor if you felt like the professor was someone that was relatively safe to talk to about imposter syndrome can be helpful or like your academic advisor. Definitely gauge how safe you feel to talk to them about these things but I had one professor who was who I felt like I could talk to about a lot of that when we had some shared identities and just seeing someone someone someone like me has their PhD or has their master's degree it helped motivate me to like keep going and I know I'm going to get mine eventually. My timeline is very all over the place I don't know yet, but I know I'm going to get one eventually and hopefully and just knowing that people have walked walked these paths before and that we're not alone. That's a big one. Yeah, definitely I think understanding that everybody experiences whether they seem like they don't know not is an important realization to accept. A student asks, you know, Have you attended any of the workshops that SSD hosts, and if you've done academic coaching, what is the process like. I have not. I have not either so. Okay, this is Eva. So I am not sure if the workshops were going on when I was in school, but I did do academic coaching and I did do past partners so peer assisted study sessions. So I'll start with academic coaching. Academic coaching was very helpful and having a you meet with a coach once a week or every other week depending on what you know what capacity you have. And for me something that I really needed was to like look at assignments and start gauging how long things would take based on the history of how long things have taken me in the past. She would check in with me on things from last week. Basically, it was. We would set smart goals, like, which I don't remember what that acronym stands for but it's like basically like manageable goals that I can do, do each week. And then we would check in again. And then for pure, and that was helpful so it's a it's you fill out a Google form. I'm not sure if they've changed to Qualtrics but you fill out a form, and they will reach out to you. Your coach would reach out to you and you can get on their schedule. And then for past partners. That was basically body doubling sessions if you know what that is. Like before it's where people sit down. Like with each other, this in this case on a zoom call and for like a four hour work session and there's check ins every. I think it was like every 30 minutes. They would check in and you can update how your progress is going or what might be stopping you right now and the past partner, the other who is another graduate student. They will, they can help guide you, or you can go in a breakout room and talk to them for like a little bit about what's going on to help get you back on track. And then they also used I'm not sure if they still use this but they used a program called fivable which I'll type in the chat. Which basically is a like a virtual room where people log in and they have these cards that you put your tasks in and you can see other people checking off their tasks, if they have their settings being visible. And for me that was very motivating I was like wow people are getting stuff done I want to get stuff done to. Do the timers do the pomodoro method, which is studying for 25 minutes taking a five minute break. Yeah, so that that's how it is it's like a structured study session in a way, or work session. They're really helpful. Thank you. Okay, so before we wrap up for today. I'd like to ask you panelists. If you would like, if you would like to share your biggest piece of advice that you have for audience members as they start this new journey. Yes. The biggest piece of advice is do what you can but remember to listen to your body and your mind. You may not be able to spend as many hours performing research or studying as your colleagues, but you can move forward at your own pace and that is more than enough. Second that and also add on and say that you can do what you need to do for yourself and like, you don't need to explain it to anybody. If you don't want to and like you don't need to feel bad for it. Like you just do what you need to do. And that's, and that's okay. That's good. This is Eva. I'm third in all of this. This is something that that for that I think I would like to leave the advice for is to give yourself some grace. In like most things you do, like, especially doing a capacity check, or there's a thing in the disability community that we say called spoon theory, where people are allocated a specific amount of spoons, each day, meaning your energy or your. Yeah, your capacity. And for every task you do, you give a certain amount of spoons so like waking up in the morning for me is at least one spoon. And then by the end of the day you might have two or three spoons left so I'd say every day doing a spoon check and give or take a few spoons. Like I used to push myself and and say I have more than what I actually have and then that leads to burnout pretty fast. So, I think that's another way to say be aware of your body. But yeah, no one you're spooned out is what I like to say. Wonderful. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you panelists for giving your time and your expertise to us today. And thank you audience members for your presence and your participation. I want to remind you that the recording of this event, the link for that will be sent to you once it has been processed that takes a couple of weeks. Please remember when you get a short break, take the opportunity to pop over to the evaluation survey so that we can keep improving our programming for you. And the panelists email addresses will be placed in the chat if you want to reach out to them for further communications. But other than that, thank you very much and take care of yourselves.