Category: Cram Session
I'm studying A-level accountancy, trouble is, I'm not sure if I'm wasting my time and I can't find anyone else who is blind to confer with.
I understand the concepts and principles absolutely fine, but noone in my college will take the time to go over account layout with me. If they don't, I'm going to fail my first exam which is in just over two months. You can probably tell by now, that my learning support at college is non-existent. I'm sure they think I'm overreacting but put them in a class with a blindfold and see how they cope with it!!!
All we do in class is diagrams of layout, which noone will go over with me so I can't even try to do them after class. I have the book in pdf form but I can't read it. The tables don't read properly and the mathmatical workings are written for sighted usage, bla bla bla devided by one hundred for example, is the number with one hundred underneath it. When you read that with a screen reader, it finishes the line you're on then reads the one hundred on the next line so I have no clue what the hell it's meant to be saying. That was a more basic example.
Either way, it's driving me insane! I got pulled out of class today because they finally realised that there was no point in me being there because I couldn't do the work. It was so imbarrassing!
Basically, I am wondering if there's anyone out here who has done accountancy and if anyone has any suggestions or oppinions coz, quite frankly, I don't know what to do anymore.
d
Hey there. I assume you call it accountancy over there, while we call it accounting here. Debits and credits and stuff. Am I right? LOL Anyway I did take one course in accounting. I positively hated it and it is the worst performance I have put in in my entire school career. Still, I did make it through thanks to my assistant who went over stuff with me quite a bit. It is very hard though when you have nothing in Braille. I basically just guessed a lot of the time, and I don't understand anything about it yet. That's my story.
yeh, only problem being, they expect me to do it all on computer... set it out like a sighty, and i have no idea how and the book is a hinderance, not a help in any way shape or form.
I've taken some accounting courses and they weren't so hard.
If you undestand the principles you can sit down with your professor and work out a solution.
For me I just used Excel (or you can even use word)
I created three columns (transaction, debit, credit)
Actually 5 columns becuase the debit and the credit had account name and the amount that goes into / out of each account.
E.g. if you sell something worth $250 with 25% tax you'd do something like
account name: bank
amount:250
.. under the debit side
credit sales: 200
credit TaxOwed: 50
..In the transaction column you can put the date and a short description like (sales of goods).
Most people use accounting software that would take care of all of this stuff for you.
I also had the office of disabilities hire me a reader who was a grad student in finance and he helped me understand the visual parts of it. Anyone decent in math or an undergrad that has taken at least 1 or 2 courses and undestands the basics can do that too. I did very well in my accounting courses and I'm about to take some more as part of my MBA degree so I know this is possible but you will need to sit down with the teacher/professor and explain your problem, come up with an alternative arrangement, even see if you can stop by and have him explain some stuff to you outside of class (or a teacher's assistant) and see what resources are availible for you. If you need me to help you in terms of explaining how I did this and back up what it is you need and how blindness affects your ability as a student email me through the zone and I shall try and help ya.
good luck
-B
hey, thanks, unfortunately, it's past that now.... After yesterday, I have decided that my time will be better spent elsewhere. My tutor says it's learning support's job,they say it's not. I'm just a ping pong ball and I'm sick of it. It's not what I want to do with my life anyway so..... I don't like the feeling of being a drop-out but I've completed other stuff so I suppose, in a sense, I'm kind of not in some way.... I'm fed up with being a project and this person that makes the college look good. I've had to put up wiht non-existent support for two and a half years now. I deserve better than this.
Thanks for your views guys, but, for me now, the subject is now closed.
D
I knew a girl a few years ago who took accounting, not just a course but an entire degree. She was totally blind and had all her books on tape. I don't know how in the heck she did it, it wouldn't be me, that's for sure. It seems to be a trend with colleges, at least here in Canada anyway, to say they'll make the effort on a blind student's behalf and then go back on their word. I've been to two so far, and it's been the same way with both of them.
It ain't easy, but it's very daoble. I'm preparing for my Series 7 exam (cirtified trader in U.S. securities) and will start my MBA degree, hopefully, in the fall, I majorred in economics and very much enjoyed it. It's like everything else, if you find the subject fascinating you can major in it. I e.g. suck at English, history and the like and I don't understand how you people do that. :)
I think you must sit down and work things out personally with your professors, don't rely on the resource or disabilties offices to be the middle men. For me this has always proved much better. You explain the problem to the professor and suggest an alternative (assignment or delivery format) and they are generally happy to see you are dealing with this issue up front and willing to make an effort to get it done. It helps if you have a friend who can help read stuff for you, for me it was a huge plus but I could've made it either way. Just be interested about what you want to major in, if your heart isn't in it it's hard to keep the brain in it, trust me on this. :) I have a nice C- from my English essay class (fortunately I took it pass/fail so it does not show on my transcript <grin>).
cheers
-B
Hi, I too have taken accounting, and though I'm not positive on my score for the end of the semester it will either be an A; (which I'm of course hoping for), or a B. Either one would be good. Anyways, I've got an Excel templet for income statements and all that if anyone is interested in email me. I've got some I've done up, and some that my professor made available to all students in the class. As far as making it at university. I think the first step is to talk with the professor. However, if they won't work with you; I ran into that situation this semester myself, then you can make disabilities counselor force them too.
Hello folks. I have had similar things occor in some classes. I tool a biology class. I did not understand a lot of the material in the class. I also thought the proffessor had hard tests. I had a note taker who hardly showed up. I didn't know much about hirghing readers, or things like that. But I will get there soon. To make a long story short, I studied at the end of the semester. We worked many hours in person, and on the phone. I ended up getting a b in the class. But barly. Another thing. Why can't you get rehab to higher a reader? Or why hasn't the disabilities resource center higher a reader. Although I would rather get rehab to higher my readers. But that's another story. But did you ever check in to that option? I will talk to you all later.
This situation i was in with this, i asked everyone for help, fellow students, learning support, my tutors, but it was always someone else's problem and everyone wanted everyone else to deal with it, and while they argued about it, i fell more and more behind. that wasn't a situation i was willing to leave myself in. Now, a month on, I can't believe how worked up the whole situation was getting me. Looking back now, I've done the right thing. It's not healthy to get that stressed.