Interpreter vs Real time captioning for upper level chemistry course

[ecp]

It's all coming back

Rather, most of it is coming back.
I underestimated my signing abilities. I definitely know much more than I thought I did. And my expressive signing is much better than I thought. Part of what made me underestimate my sign skillz was the fact that I effectively jumped from middle school vocabulary to extremely technical vocabulary. The interpreters don't even know many of the terms so I've been teaching them the technical signs I've learned.

Today I tried to explain what alkyl halides are to the interpreter (she asked and there was basically nothing happening in the class)...it didn't work well. The interpreter hasn't had chemistry since high school and that was only a half semester intro class.

So, for all those interested, the advanced organic chemistry class is going very well. I'm the only deaf student to take it at this university and I'm in the top 2% of the class (100+ people).

Captioning might be more accurate in lecture but whoever suggested interpreter for lab was spot on. When both my hearing aid batteries died in the middle of an experiment and the TA asked me to explain my equipment set-up, I was able to explain what I was doing to the class via the interpreter (I don't like talking when my hearing aids are dead because I can't hear me).

Yay for science.

 

[DURAY]

ECP, you'll do fine. go to deaf events (most, if not all), ignore the ones who look down on you, enjoy yourself, etc.

I am a member of AMPHL.

To DURAY- I classify myself as d/Deaf (I purposefully include the big and little d). Audiologically, I'm deaf. I've known sign language since I was 4 but my hearing loss is progressive, so I mostly live (very isolated) in the hearing world.

I'm getting tired of labels though. Hearing people say I'm DEAF! and Deaf people, or at least the subset I've met, sort of look down on me.

After spending the weekend with some highschool friends (all are hearing) I realized that my social life is non-existant. My friends from college only ever knew "d/Deaf ecp" and thus had no assumptions. I think I might spend the rest of my life wishing I was back in college. One of the interpreters invited me to a Deaf event but I'm scared. I'm usually nervous about going to any social gathering but this one seems even more scary because I know I'll be able to understand what people are saying but I will probably have to fingerspell every other word of anything I say because I really need to work on expressive ASL.