As I promised, a blog (or 4 - one blog per year) about college. I came to RIT in 2007, entering my freshman year. RIT has 8 colleges; Applied Science & Technology, Business, Computing & Information Science, Engineering, Imaging Arts & Sciences, Liberal Arts, National Technical Institute for the Deaf, and Science. In my freshman year, I went to the National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID), majoring in Arts & Imaging Science.
The first night of college, I reunited with my friends from the camp I went to at RIT during the summer before my senior year in high school, as well new friends I met during the day. I remember we all explored the residence halls area, and hung out in the lounge watching movies. The first week of college was all orientation for only NTID students, which gave me the chance to explore deaf community for the first time. I recall that I was so eager to have deaf peers my age, and having no problems with communication since all of these friends I made had used sign language.
RIT/NTID runs under a tri quarter system. The first quarter (Fall) had been really great, I explored the deaf community & was able to make many many many deaf friends. I socialized a lot with deaf people. I lost my focus on hearing world for a while because the deaf world was a new world for me. I got caught up in the excitement of it. Since NTID was a college focusing on deaf students, the classes consisted of deaf students as well deaf teachers (most of time). Some teachers may be hearing that has the skill of sign language. The classes were easily accessible for the deaf community.
I joined a "deaf" sorority on campus - Sigma Sigma Sigma - within first 2 weeks of college. Tri Sigma was the only one out of two deaf sororities on campus, but the positive factor of Tri Sigma is that it wasn't entirely deaf. It included members from the hearing world that knew sign language i.e. interpreters or just girls that was willing to learn. What I liked about Tri Sigma is that like RIT, it had both worlds. My first year in Tri Sigma was unforgettable. I got to meet a lot of wonderful ladies that I was proud to call my sisters. I had an amazing big sister who showed the way around Tri Sigma world. Many of the sisters, including my big sister, had opened up a world for me which led me to build even a stronger person. The sorority helped me to reach out to others, make friends, be socializing, become a stronger person, and find myself. Tri Sigma was my family in Rochester that was the support system for me that was there for me anytime.
The freshman year was excellent year with many fond memories that was built from all kinds of experience that I had at RIT. As I mentioned all the positive aspects that I had at RIT, I also faced negative aspects.
When I first came in RIT and exploring the deaf community, I started seeing several kind of identities that existed. I never thought of this. There's the Deaf-power which mostly consists of deaf institute students, deaf students from deaf families, etc. They hold a huge pride of their deafness, therefore are the top subculture group of the deaf community. I faced judgments from the Deaf power students on why I was using my voice and signing ESL (English Sign Language) instead of ASL (American Sign Language). They made it difficult for me to fit in the deaf community, which forced me to seek deaf peers that were like me. Most of these were categorized as Oral-Deaf or Mainstreamed Deaf. Mainstreamed Deaf are the deaf students that may been the only one or came from a small deaf community, that attended mainstreamed school (which I fit in this category). Oral-deaf were similar to the Mainstreamed Deaf but with cochlear implants. Both mainstreamed deaf and oral deaf used mostly ESL (or some ASL) and voice to communicate with hearing people. Deaf power people usually avoid any contact with hearing people until it's necessary i.e. out in public, stores, banks, etc.
I mentioned my experience going to visit the deaf institutes when I was in 7th grade. I mentioned that the education level was off-tracked from the average grade level of regular hearing students for the deaf students. I faced that problem again in college, in NTID. The NTID classes had been really easy for me, and I had time to slack. This caused me to transfer out of the college for the deaf to the College of Liberal Arts to criminal justice major. I forgot to mention that NTID focuses more on associate's degree, not bachelor's degree.
In Spring Quarter, I entered in College of Liberal Arts for the first time. I was back to the life when I was in high school of being in mainstreamed classes with team of support services i.e. interpreters, note takers, etc. Some classes, I might have been the only deaf student. I was happy to be out of NTID, because I was starting to be irritated with the education aspects. I wanted more challenging education that really makes me motivated to work hard and LEARN. This caused me to go back in the hearing world, making hearing friends at RIT. I hadn't have much of socializing with the hearing people since high school, so it wasn't any problem to go back in that lifestyle because that was the one I grew up in.
What I never imagined to happen is that going back in that lifestyle would actually make me miss being in the hearing world. I started to hang out with hearing friends, even dated a hearing guy. Going back to the hearing world, made me lose a lot of my deaf friends that I gained in first two quarters of college. The only ones I had were sisters from Tri Sigma and my best friend. I was disconnected from the deaf community/world.
I also realized that I wanted nothing to do with the deaf community because I didn't like the morals and 'rules' of the deaf community. They also isolated themselves so much that it was like a fantasy world. I had forgotten for a while how life was like in hearing world (which is more of reality). It is important to keep the factors I learned from being in hearing world because hearing world is the reality. We, deaf people, always will face hearing people daily. I thought it would be impossible to be sucked into the deaf world, but it wasn't. I did got sucked in, and I forgot what reality was for a while. Realizing all of that when I went back in hearing world just scared me so much that I disconnected myself from the deaf world (minus Tri Sigma).
I left my freshman year at RIT, only having the Tri Sigma sisters, one deaf best friends, and all the hearing friends that I gained in Spring Quarter back home to Finger Lakes Region in Upstate NY. Back to reality. Back to hearing world. Back to be only deaf person within 2 hours radius. That summer changed me again.
You guessed it, that will be blog #2 about my second year at RIT.
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