Published on 12, July, 2020
I found it really difficult to concentrate during university lectures and found myself having to re-teach everything to myself in my own time. I'm going into 3rd year maths next month and I was just wondering if anyone had any tips? We have a pretty heavy lecture timetable with us having more lectures in one day than most of my friends have an entire week, and the lecturers were talking about adding an extra 3 hrs per week for 3rd years this year so I think I really need some help.
The psychologist who diagnosed me said that I especially struggle with taking information in when it is given to me verbally (hence difficulties in lectures). I was also recently diagnosed with ADHD if that gives you any more insight into my situation.
I'm pretty tight financially, and applying for DSA has been a bit of a nightmare (plus friends I have who have DSA have said it's been pretty useless).
Any suggestions would be appreciated, thanks :)
I am currently at university (entering my 4th and final year this September) and got diagnosed with ASD this year. It was too late to sort out any of the support the University offered for my 3rd year but entering into 4th year, I have a lot of support available/offered to me.When I got my diagnosis, the disability service at my university was able to arrange for a phone call with an assessor which involved going through a a lot of questions to find out what I needed. This was actually a very pleasant experience as the assessor asked me if I felt more comfortable answering "yes/no" to questions and she was able to figure out the rest. They put you down for everything they think you might need, and the disability service advised me to just say yes to whatever they offered even if I didn't think it was necessary.
There's a lot of applications they have that can help with studying and notetaking, so I think it is worth trying to sort the DSA funding out and talking to you disability service at University. For example I got various applications to help with notetaking, and document writing (I am going to be doing my dissertation this year). I also was able to get flare audio buds to help with noises and mentoring through DSA funding. I have 2 mentors, one that I meet online whenever I need (DSA only fund for a set amount of hours however) and one which was set up by my university which is a weekly meeting. Of course I cannot comment on the effectiveness of this support, as I have not started university yet.
I think it is worth trying to sort out your DSA funding and contacting your disability service at university (if you haven't already) to try and start the process of getting the support you need.
I have been trying to get the DSA sorted for a while, and after issues with getting evidence from my GP (they were bad at communication) I thought I would finally be able to at least apply if not have the assessment over summer in time for the start of this academic year, however I'm still waiting on an update to my Autism diagnosis report as I was diagnosed with ADHD in June and all of that stuff was going to be added to the same report. However, the psychologist who diagnosed me and who is writing the report only works on Fridays and she told me it would take a while to sort out.
I am surprised however that it has taken too long. I don't want to push her because she's really nice and I don't think she'll have forgotten about me or anything like that. I am used to these things taking a while, but it is still a disappointment.