From the Editor: One of the speakers at the Job Opportunities for the Blind (JOB) Seminar at the 1993 Convention of the National Federation of the Blind in Dallas was Doug Lee. Mr. Lee is now a computer programmer for Metro Vision, Inc., in Illinois. He is a graduate of the University of Illinois, but he took time out during his undergraduate career for intensive training at Blindness: Learning in New Dimensions (BLIND, Inc.), the adult rehabilitation center conducted by the National Federation of the Blind of Minnesota in Minneapolis. Here is his story as he told it to those attending the JOB Seminar:

I suppose technically I could answer the question of why I interrupted college in six words, but every time someone asks me, I miss the mark by several hundred. I'll explain some things that happened before I went to BLIND, Inc., and some that happened afterward, then I'll talk a little bit about what I do now as a computer programmer at Metro Vision. I think you'll see a pattern in what has happened to me.

When I went to college, I assumed a number of things. First of all, during the first semester I assumed it was going to be a little easier than high school because there weren't as many hours of classes. There were, however, a few more hours of homework that I hadn't bargained for, but in the first semester I understood a lot of the material. When finals time came, I thought, "So what's the big deal about finals? You go in and answer a few questions that you know the answers to (at least I thought I did during the first semester)."

Second semester it wasn't quite the same story. I ran into some new material, and I didn't really know what to do with it. I didn't have any readers lined up, for example.

The third semester went about the same way. But in addition I had a few other problems. I ended up going into the hospital for four days for an allergy-related problem, and I came out and thought that I could get by, doing my homework and not going to class. I told myself that I would use the class time to do my homework instead. Between the spring break and summer I think I made about three classes. Little things started to happen that were not part of my plan. For example, I went to my professor and asked, "How come we're not going to cover chapter four?" He said, "We did cover chapter four." I said, "How come it's not on the exam?" He said, "Oh that's right, you weren't here for the third exam." "This isn't the third exam?" "No, this is the fourth exam." It seems that I was in the hospital before the third exam, but since I wasn't going to class, I didn't know that the third exam was given during the time that I was trying to catch up in that one class.

Things like this began to make me worry about my ability to do the work and whether I was actually going to graduate with any standing. The other worry I had was that I was going to graduate with an apparent standing but without the knowledge that my grades indicated I should have. I've told a lot of people about the exam I took that was supposed to be a three-hour written probability and statistics exam in mathematics. Probably due in part to my absence and my having missed another exam and all the problems that I seemed to be having, my professor gave me a thirty-minute oral, non-numeric exam for which he gave me an A. That felt wrong, though I did not have the courage to say so at the time. But it stayed with me, and it worried me. It made me think: I'm going to graduate, and maybe no one is going to expect me to know probability and statistics. Besides, I was pretty sure that I didn't know it as well as those other people who got A's and did the numbers because I never did the numbers on that final. As a result I started looking for a measuring stick that I could believe in.

One other important thing happened before I got to BLIND, Inc. I was invited to go to an interview in Maryland for a potential job, and I actually pleaded a little with the people to let me do it after I went to BLIND, Inc., because I was really worried about my performance. Consequently I certainly didn't conduct myself with much confidence. That also scared me.

When I got to BLIND, Inc., I had some expectation that it was going to solve all my problems, and it did help me solve a lot of problems, but it didn't do the work for me. Centers like BLIND, Inc., will teach you the skills you need to know, but they alone cannot teach you to believe in yourself. You have to learn to do that for yourself. But believe me, because the environment is full of positive philosophy, it makes the job a lot easier. Most people assume blind people can't do a lot of things; you know that as well as I do. So, as I say, I had some experiences there that I had never had before. One of them was that the staff assumed I could deal with a lot of things I had never done before.

Just to pull one story out of the air, I remember very well an attempt to canoe down a river. I had been in a canoe before, but I had never tried to be in the back. I had always been in canoes with somebody who knew a heck of a lot more about them and about what they do and don't do and about how to get them to go from point A to point B. I hadn't done this. On this trip I figured out a few things from what people were telling me and by some information passed along most bluntly by some fast-passing tree trunks. But it all happened in an environment in which it was okay to make a few mistakes and to learn from the consequences of those mistakes. In addition to the special experiences at BLIND, there was also a lot of solid information--Braille, travel, and seminars in which students talk about anything you can imagine from ways to sort things in the kitchen to ways to find a job. The whole experience taught me a lot I needed to know, and it was helpful in building belief in myself and in my way of doing things as a blind person.

I graduated from BLIND, Inc., in 1991. I went back to college and began to apply some of the things I had learned at BLIND in college--getting readers, and using Braille to take notes, for example. I had always used a tape recorder, but I started using shorthand, which saved a lot of time. It also raised a few questions from my classmates, which was fine with me.

I found that I was dealing with things in a different way. Before I went to BLIND, when things happened like being asked to go to Maryland, I tried to duck. But now, when somebody throws me a fast ball, I don't always duck. For example, take my job, which I got because I had contacts. I have a friend whom I've known for about eight years. He was one of the many people I told that I was graduating and was looking for a job. His boss invited me to come out and interview. When I did (it was a very small company), we talked about the things I would be doing if I started working there right away. I did take the job, but let me tell you, if I had not gone to BLIND, Inc., I would not have had the confidence to take it. They were going to have me program in Clipper, a program language I had heard of but had never seen a line of code in. They were going to have me using an application system I had never heard of before and work on a network I had never used before. In short, there was very little about that job I really understood, except that it was a programming job. But that fact meant it was okay. In a previous job I had learned a programming language fast, so I assumed I could learn this one too. With that assumption I went in and did it. But you need that assumption first, or you will never bother to try.

It took me a little while to learn the language, but a lot of that was evening time, because I didn't want to take much work time. Actually, I learned a lot on the job too, and I think my boss was very understanding. I did learn the language. I learned the programming environment. I learned the network. Now sometimes I answer their questions just like they still answer some of mine.

I'd been working there for about three months, and I knew that my boss was going to have to go to Chicago for a demonstration and that my co-worker and I were going to stay behind and keep up with the work and deal with our customers' problems. Part of our business is service contracts. I wasn't really thinking much about the trip until Thursday night, when my boss gave me a call at home about 10:15 in the evening and said, "How would you like to be on a train to Chicago tomorrow morning?" I jumped and tried to think what to say. In my mind I was saying, "You've been learning. You can try. Don't say `no' immediately. Ask a few questions; don't give up now."[applause]

I was on a 6:30 train to Chicago the next morning. I got there two hours before they expected me. They wanted me to help demonstrate one of the programs. This was a show for educators, and one of the programs we had written maintained the school lunch information for students. We thought that would be a useful program to bring to this demonstration. I had explained to my boss a lot of the things that I had put into it, but he didn't have much time to become familiar with it. Since I had been the one writing the program, I knew more about it than anybody else. That's probably one of the reasons they asked me to go to Chicago. I did demonstrate it, and it went fine. When I got finished, I thought about what had just happened. If I had not gone to Chicago and learned that I could do this kind of assignment, I would probably have stayed in Springfield and wondered whether I could have done it. I had done that many times before.

I have had lots of experiences like this one since I returned from BLIND, Inc.--times when I had to decide something so fast that I didn't have time to plan. Now I have the confidence to try new things.

Obviously my job is programming. I write programs for school districts and various groups and individuals--very specialized programs, mostly database management and other information management. We also do a fair number of service contracts. It's a small business. There are about three of us working in my section, and we overlap. At one point I referred to myself as a programmer/receptionist because I was usually the only one there, so I got to answer the phone. It wasn't in my job description, but it had to be done, and I was the one who was available to do it.

In closing I will say in six words that I left college early to attend BLIND, INC.: to learn to believe I can. [applause]