My Big City Adventure
Moving out on your own is one of those things you always dream about. You often think about how cool it would be to have your own place, to be able to have friends over whenever you want, and buy all the snacks you can eat.
This dream became my reality about four years ago. I had graduated high school, had some work experience, gained a lot of life skills, and completed a year at the local college trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. I decided that I wanted to go into a career in book publishing, and I found a publishing program at Simon Fraser University in the Lower Mainland. It seemed perfect for me!
However, I thought that before I attended a big University, I would need more accessible technology skills. I was told about the Visually Impaired Program at Vancouver Community College, where they teach braille and various accessible computer skills such as Powerpoint, Excel etc. I decided to enroll in the Visually Impaired program and make the move to Vancouver. This was my chance to move out on my own, and move to a big city where there were way more resources and opportunities for people who are visually impaired. It was so exciting and scary all at the same time, but I am so glad I took that leap!I had to learn so many things during my first year in the Lower Mainland. I learned how to navigate the very busy city streets, how to use audible signals to cross multiple lanes of traffic (something we didn’t have in my small town), how to travel on city buses and the Skytrain that announced all the stops, how to use GPS apps for directions, and of course how to budget for things such as rent, bills and groceries. I had to learn all of this while also attending the Visually Impaired Program. I also had the chance to try new things, such as Goalball. During this time, I joined Blind Beginnings, where I met a lot of great people and I even accidentally walked the entire Granville Bridge. There were a lot of firsts that year, but my experiences really helped me learn how to be independent, which had been the goal of that year for me anyways.
My second year in Vancouver was a whole new adventure. I applied and got accepted to Simon Fraser University, which came with an entirely new set of things to learn. I moved out from the room I was renting to the SFU dorms, which was a very interesting living situation. I had to figure out how to navigate the very huge campus (which has many levels might I add). I also had to learn how to enroll in classes, how to get to the lecture halls where they were being held, learn all the different websites and remember all the accounts for them, learn my accommodations through the Center for Accessible Learning, figure out the bus routes, and finally how to budget for all the costs of University. Transferring to SFU and moving into dorms was a whole new set of challenges, and I did it only a year after moving to the Lower Mainland. It was a really busy and rather intense time, but I made it work! I was finally on the career path I wanted, and was working towards completing a degree. I will never be more proud of how hard I worked in those first couple of years in Vancouver, and I haven’t stopped yet.
After living in dorms for two and a half years (which is a great experience that I think everyone should have at least for a semester or two), I had the chance to move to my very own apartment – well, with a roommate of course. Through extended family, I have been renting out an apartment for the past year now. This has been the best living arrangement so far. It’s only a ten minute bus ride to the SFU campus, and there are also great bus connections to pretty much anywhere I want to go. I live next door to a shopping plaza that has every store for basic amenities you could think of, and it is a fairly quiet and safe neighbourhood. I couldn’t be more grateful to be living here! I am still working towards my degree and have about a year and a half to go, with future plans to attend Grad School. I have done a lot and learned even more in the almost five years living in the Lower Mainland, and moving down here was the best decision I could have ever made for myself!
by Jillian Sloane