Using ZoomText from Middle School to Grad School

Rachel Wells is a 25 year old student in her first year of a Master’s Degree program for Clinical-Counseling Psychology at Valdosta State University in Valdosta, Georgia. To top it off, she’s visually impaired and credits ZoomText with making her schooling career possible.

Rachel has a congenital condition called retinopathy of prematurity – a condition that occurs primarily, but not exclusively, in premature infants and refers to blood vessel damage in a developing eye. She is legally blind, with a completely detached retina in her left eye that leaves her with no vision in that eye and very little in her right eye, and she has no depth perception. Luckily for Rachel, when she was 13, she worked with a vocational rehab facility where she was introduced to ZoomText. She’s been a loyal user ever since!

In middle school, she scanned in her instructor’s notes and then used ZoomText to magnify the print. “ZoomText is so easy to use,” says Rachel. “I could see my notes even when the teachers had horrible handwriting! The features really allowed me to cut down on glare and made using the computer much easier.”

In high school, the tasks became more complex and she found herself using ZoomText to help her see and design PowerPoint presentations, to write up lab reports (which she wrote by hand and then scanned and magnified to see if she had made any mistakes), and to type up long essays.

Then it was off to college! Rachel headed to Tennessee Wesleyan College in Athens, TN, majoring in agriculture with an emphasis on veterinary medicine. Unfortunately, the college wasn’t a great fit for her, and she soon learned veterinary medicine wasn’t either. She called 90 different veterinary clinics across the country to see if they would hire her after she earned her degree which garnered reactions ranging from hang ups to being laughed at. She was pretty much told that there was no way she’d be able to get a job with her eye condition. As much as she didn’t want to admit it to herself, having no depth perception would make it very difficult to give an animal a shot, or be able to perform surgery on someone’s pet.

Instead of giving in to the despair that was settling around her, Rachel decided to reevaluate her life plans. She had to refocus and centered in on psychology. “Even though I always thought I was an animal person, I’m going to end up being a people person!” says Rachel. “Psychology isn’t a career that I originally set out to pursue, but I’m quickly realizing that I’m really good at it.”

Rachel received her bachelor’s degree from Lee University in Cleveland in 2007. She used ZoomText to take the GRE test that she needed for entry into graduate school. She began her master’s degree program this spring and hopes to complete it in two years. Her long term goals are to achieve a Doctorate of Psychology (PsyD), join an established clinical psychology practice, and specialize in gender identity disorder and sexual orientation issues.

“My life has been an entire exercise in adaptability and improvisation,” says Rachel. “Once you admit your own limitations, you can deal with them and learn to adjust your life accordingly. You never have to be the victim in a situation if you don’t want to be – you just have to take charge of your own life and you’ll reap the rewards.”

Aside from her studies, Rachel enjoys reading and writing short stories and loves to be around horses – she owns two of them and enjoys trail riding. We all wish the best of luck to Rachel in graduate school and beyond!