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DSA is Disability Students Allowance
and that basically just supports you at Higher Education
to actually achieve the goals you want to do.
To be honest, I felt almost like it’d be cheating,
to begin with, to be getting help.
It’s not easy to think of yourself as a disabled person.
Because it never got diagnosed, I was kind-of like, am I, aren’t I?
I’d had ongoing things as a kid worrying about,
oh, I’m not very good at spelling or I need more time reading,
and they just said I needed to catch up
and I was a bit slow in what I was doing.
When I went to university I struggled and I got really low marks,
and then I decided that I needed to get help.
I wasn’t really sure what information they needed in advance,
so for example, medical information or support information.
It did feel like it was going to be complicated,
a long-winded process, something that I’d struggle with.
With having benefits in the past,
I’ve had to go through similar assessments.
And at college I’d go through assessments,
and you feel like you’re being taken apart.
Everything that is you, is having to be expressed.
And I thought going through that again for university
wasn’t something I particularly wanted to do,
but when I thought about it,
I thought, 'right, I’ll go for it, I’ll do it'.
And it actually wasn’t too bad!
Definitely go through the application process.
It’s not as scary as anyone would initially think
and I think people are there trying to support you and help you.
You should definitely go for it.
