SomnusNooze
We are pleased to release three uniquely written excerpts from our Advice from Campus guide in the Education Essentials Guidebook. All of these excerpts navigate the student with idiopathic hypersomnia (IH) through some inevitable challenges on a campus. These guides, written by higher education professionals diagnosed with IH, are based on their own career experiences and living with the diagnosis of IH.
The first of these guides – Navigating the Admissions Office – is being released during this very memorable time of the academic year when high school students are taking campus tours and high school seniors and adult students are receiving acceptance letters from their campuses of choice. This guide reflects the experience and insight of a career professional in Admissions who has IH. It offers tips to both of these groups of students with IH as well as provides the prospective student with IH a guide through the Admissions process.
The second guide – Navigating Learning in Higher Education – was written by a
professor with IH who advises students with IH in wise and informed ways about how to learn and manage homework assignments while living with the diagnosis. Students are reminded in this guide that they are no longer in high school (!), and they are provided general tips about what to tell their professors, what to do in class, and what to do outside of class when it comes to reading, writing, and studying – all the while dealing with the symptoms of IH and doing so often times while not living at home.
A campus-based counselor with IH who has spent a career working in the counseling center of a public university wrote the third guide – Navigating Counseling Services on Campus. It provides knowledgeable insight into the services that are offered on campus by clarifying what those services are about and how they might help students over the course of the academic year, which moves along at a fast pace. Although course demands increase at predictable times, crises can occur at any time. It is very common for students to feel extra pressure and stress with multiple deadlines, especially students with IH. Sometimes, when academic stresses increase, other life issues, including managing IH, may become more difficult as well. Caring counselors at the Counseling Center are there to listen, offer support, and help students with IH find ways to cope with their unique situations and stressors. As this author wisely notes, Over the course of my career working in Campus Counseling Centers, my colleagues joined me in saying “we want students to come in, no matter how small or large the problem may seem, we are here to support our students and help them to know they are not alone in resolving any issues…
We welcome you to share the Education Essentials Guidebook and these Navigating guides with students with IH, their supporters, and their high school counselors as well as their campus disability service providers.