Karen Arcos Vh Scholarship Awards 2013 Keynote Speech

My name is Karen Arcos, and I graduated from John Marshall High School two years ago in 2011, so I was in your shoes two years ago, roughly. I graduated from their School for Advanced Studies small learning community at Marshall, and through that I then transitioned into attending the University of Southern California where I just completed my sophomore year. I'm majoring in Psychology and recently declared a minor in Spanish. The transition from high school to university/college work was difficult. Whether you are blind or sighted, you're asking yourself the same questions. "What's it going to be like? Am I going to live on my own? Am I going to commute to school? What's the course load going to be like? How am I going to get my accommodations? Who do I need to ask for the help? Where do I turn to?" This is what I had to go through, either asking my Department of Rehabilitation counselor for assistance, or asking the Disability Services and Programs office for assistance. Ultimately, I'm now living in an on-campus apartment for the past two years, and I'll be living at the same building again next year. Being a college student has taught me a lot about myself. How am I as a person: neat, organized, messy? Who do I want to live with? In terms of roommates, when you start living with a person who you've never met before, that really is eye-opening in the sense that you have to learn to cooperate with other people, to learn about yourself. Where am I going to get my next meal? Am I going to cook? Am I going to the dining hall to get food? These are the questions that go through a freshman's head and even later on, just meeting basic needs. The biggest thing that I've really learned from being in college now for two years halfway through undergrad is to ask for help in and out of the classroom because whether or not you can see, we're going to need help, whether it be finding your way around campus when you're lost. I have a really interesting story about that. It was my freshman year, two days into school, and I had to get to a building on the other side of campus from where I live. It was an 8 A.M. class on a Tuesday. I'm leaving at like 7:30 to give myself enough time to get there, and I had practiced the route with my Orientation and Mobility instructor, but of course, I ended up veering off campus onto Exposition Blvd (audience laughs), which is a really large street and lots of cars, lots of volume, lots of traffic, and I'm just, "Oh my god I have to get to class," and didn't know what to do until a lady from the Department of Public Safety walks up to me. She asked, "Do you need help? Are you trying to get somewhere?" and I let her know where I was going. She didn't walk me to class. She asked a person from the Department of Public Safety to come and drive me to class (audience laughs), and the reason she did this was because her parents are deaf, so she knew what it was like to provide the help and to ask for the help because of how she was raised, and that one instance of asking for help--I mean, I have plenty more--but that's the one that really sticks with me (audience laughs) because of her kindness, just coming up to me. It was really embarrassing even thinking about it now, but ultimately, that's what we have to do. I'm here today not to be speaking about me all the way through; it's to speak and motivate all of you because we all imagine being successful in any given area. As an anonymous person put it, "We are limited, not by our abilities, but by our vision." We all have a purpose to achieve in this world, and whether or not we have found it is irrelevant. It is critical, however, that all of us devise a strategy to discover our role in the industrialized world. Why? Because lacking such a framework will be costly later on. Whether your goal is to go to an independent living skills center to improve on independence and living on your own, or whether it be going to a community college and transferring, whether it be going to a four year university straight out. These are all questions that you have to begin thinking about, what you plan to do with your future. That's the question that I pose to all the graduates today. What do you expect out of yourself? Where do you see yourself in five, ten years from now? Furthermore, what do others expect of you? We all have many stereotypes that you can bring back about what society considers for the blind, "Oh, you can't read. How are you going to get around? You can't use public transit." It's all these nots, but ultimately it's up to us to show the public what we are capable of doing. In terms of myself at least, I plan to continue in my career; you know you don't have to have a solid plan. I certainly don't know where I see myself working but I'm trying to take the steps to explore and find the career for me, but I ultimately want to be able to contribute to society and give back. Being involved socially--having both friends who are blind and friends who are sighted. Being involved economically--providing for myself, being able to earn money and fend for myself, and finally, being involved politically. Maybe not as a politician, but voting. How many of us know of services that are provided by the government or by private entities? We're always talking about these services or explaining how we'd like them to improve, but so many people do not vote. Just in the recent election for mayor here in LA, we had the lowest voter turnout in history I believe? That just goes to show. Being blind, I've had to vote too. I'm not going to say it's easy. At first, during the presidential election, we couldn't get the machine to work--the automated machine, but it's up to us to vote so that the government knows what we would like and takes our suggestions, like they say, "We the people" have to take it on to ourselves to keep the process going. We're the future. It's just continuing to educate myself, continuing to educate those around me, and same to all of you. What comes with education is the ability to advocate for yourself, to speak up whether you think something is right or whether you think there needs to be improvement. In order to be able to advocate, it's a question of taking advantage of the resources that are around you regardless of what your goal may be. Whether it's school or independent living, there's resources out there to help you, but it's up to you to find them. If you're at school, there's offices of financial aid, of admissions; the career center has helped me a lot to develop a lot as a person; asking, speak up. There's extracurricular activities. How do you meet mew people? How do you learn to organize, networking, meeting not only peers but adults, professors, possible employers. All of this comes with asking and advocating. If it's independent living, how are you going to learn to cook? How are you going to learn to clean? Continuing orientation and mobility training, braille? If that's your area, then there's the resource. It's not just finding the resource but making the most out of where you plan to take yourself. Another suggestion I really take to heart for myself is giving back to the community where you come from because at least for me, my parents, my family, staff here. It takes a village to raise a child. It's kind of a corny statement, but really, it's true. So many people contribute to one person, and who's going to help others? Only we can. There's a great example. I'm sure you all have heard about what's happening at Frances Blend School right now, the possible closure of the school and what we as people can do about it is writing letters--again advocating--letting the district know how we feel about the issue. It's the Visually Handicapped Scholarship Fund, what am I doing up here? Speaking to all of you after the invite, and I do it so that others can learn and I can learn from others along the way, it's a mutual gain. If you're not sure how you'd like to give back, it's looking at the community around you, seeing where you think that improvement needs to happen and coming up with solutions not just "Oh, school is crazy. We don't have material. Oh, the bus transportation is too slow; it's inefficient." It's not just complaining about the problems, but it's doing something about it. One of the things that I've done now--many of you may have heard about the support group that four visually impaired friends and I started called Survive or Thrive. We started this support group Survive or Thrive, or S.O.T. for short, in March of 2012 in order to help visually impaired students from middle school through high school age to develop their advocacy skills like I'm saying up here, to develop their independence, to develop as people. We have different events that we host in order to achieve these goals. We have formal workshops twice a year--we're having our next one in about a month. There's flyers being distributed about it now, so I really encourage any of you who are interested to attend; it's going to be in June. We also have informal events such as a yearly picnic that we host for families to get to know each other, so again, it's connecting all the networking skills that I've said; it's finding a way of bringing people together because really, once I got to school, I'm only one of two students who are visually impaired at USC. Keeping in touch with my friends who have a visual impairment has been really important to me to have people who I can relate to, while also making sighted friends along the way. The moral of the story with Survive or Thrive is identify the problem, and act in order to make a solution happen. Also, I really encourage all of you to work hard in finding and accomplishing whatever your life goal may be because ultimately, who knows you better than you? We do; parents do. Coming together with parents, with family, with friends--I keep repeating myself--but really, that's who you have to rely on. You have so many people around you who are willing to help. In the end, anyone can tell you and give you as much advice as they would like, but it's only up to you as a person, only you can shape your future, so I encourage you to take advantage of all that there is to offer and to tread your path proudly and surely now and always. Thank you, and congratulations.