The best part of being at college is being around my peers.  I don’t have to be with kids who are younger than me.  I can be with people who are 20, like me, and hang out with them and have fun.

On top of my school work, I do a lot of extra-curricular stuff.  I am in the Social Work club and in Hillel, a Jewish club.  I’m in another Jewish group outside school, called USY (United Synagogue Youth).  I’m also on the national youth board of KASA, which stands for Kids as Self Advocates.  It’s a brand of an organization called Family Voices.  I joined the board of KASA in 2001.

This semester, I’m taking a communication class and a mental health class, and I’m taking an independent study on computers.  I get help from my peers, and I get help from the teachers in my program.  My peer helpers will send me emails, or help me to make flash cards and talk to me on the phone.  I can meet with the professors and go over notes with them, too.  When I take tests and exams, someone reads them to me.

I also get to complete assignments in different ways.  For example, in one class I had, all the students had to write a paper about the Bush versus Kerry election, and the teacher asked me if I wanted to do a videotape instead.  So I did an interview with Elizabeth Bauer of the Michigan State Board of Education about her job.