November 12, 2025 | GradWell Season 2 View transcript ⚠️ JavaScript is required to view the podcast player. Give this episode a listen and let us know what you think! Follow GradWell and join us on our journey to greater well-being for graduate students at the University of Michigan. Guest Kat has worked in the higher education disability access field for six years. After several years of working in K-12 educational non-profits, all while grappling with their own disability identity after getting sick and being diagnosed with multiple chronic illnesses, Kat attended Bowling Green State University, where she was a graduate student assistant in the Accessibility Services Office for three years. Afterwards, Kat accepted a position at the University of Michigan, and just celebrated three years in the Services for Students with Disabilities office. Resources Services for Students with Disabilities Office Accommodations through SSD Academic Support and Access Partnerships Scholarships, Awards, and Funding through SSD CAPS Uwill – video, phone, chat, and message sessions with licensed mental health professionals Wellness Coaching International Center Spectrum Center Reach out to Kat with any questions: [email protected] Email us about the podcast: [email protected] Stay in touch by joining Gradwell’s MCommunity group! Transcript Sam Hobson: Hey, welcome to GradWell, a limited series podcast that explores various ways the University of Michigan can support its graduate students and their journey to create a wellbeing in our everyday lives, brought to you by Rackham Graduate School. This season, we’ll be talking to members of our academic community whose research intersects various dimensions of wellbeing. I’m Sam Hobson, a PhD candidate and a GSSA in Rackham’s Professional Development and Engagement Office. My fellow grad students, it’s time we start placing as much importance on ourselves as we do our work. You’re worth the effort. Kat Nic: When people’s needs are being met, they find that they feel a lot lighter and they feel a lot more positive and hopeful going forward. Sam Hobson: Hello, hello. Today’s resource is Kat Nic, our senior disability access coordinator for graduate students here at Michigan. We’re going to be highlighting Kat’s work regarding disability accommodations, identity, and the stressors that can keep us from accessing the things that we need, exploring the intersections of the environmental, emotional, and professional dimensions of wellbeing. I’m excited to have you up with Kat and me today. All right, let’s jump in. So, Kat Nic has worked in the higher education disability access field for six years. After several years of working in K through 12 educational nonprofits, all while grappling with their own disability identity after getting sick and being diagnosed with multiple chronic illnesses, Kat attended Bowling Green State University, where she was a graduate student assistant in the Accessibility Services Office for three years. Afterwards, Kat accepted a position at the University of Michigan and just celebrated three years in the Services for Students with Disabilities or SSD Office. Hi, Kat. Thank you for being here today. Kat Nic: Thank you for having me. Sam Hobson: I’m glad to have you. So, Kat, tell us how you got into this academic focus. Kat Nic: Yeah. So, it’s a weird just happenstance type of thing. Like you mentioned in my introduction, my own disability identities were really important in grappling with why I had struggled so much in higher education. I have my bachelor’s degree and a master’s and an education specialist degree, and only in the last one did I actually have accommodations and did I actually realize I was disabled. My whole educational career, I felt like I was doing everything on hard mode. I was ending up in the hospital. I was just getting really sick. Lots of things were happening. I am the type of person that when something hard or bad happens in my life, I want to use it as a propeller to make things better for other people who go through the same things and so that they don’t have to struggle in the same ways I struggled. Also, I really knew I wanted to do something with disability because I knew it was something that really impacted my life, so it must be really impacting other people’s lives as well. I really have fallen in love with working in this space. It’s not easy work, which I like. I like the challenge of making sure that everyone’s needs are met. It’s such an individualized field because there’s this saying where if you’ve met one person with ADHD or autism or whatever condition, you’ve met one person with that condition. That’s really the case. Every disability, you can all have the same label, but it’s going to look really, really different in you than it’s going to look in me, than it’s going to look in this third person. So, really our field is just super individualized. We really take the time to meet with every student and figure out what their needs are and how we can meet them with accommodations and resources and just scaffolded support. Sam Hobson: I love when you framed it as the challenge of making sure that everyone’s needs are met, but you said that with such abundance. It is a game to win instead of some type of hardship to overcome. I really appreciate that reframe of, “What if we saw getting our needs met as something…” As graduate students, we love a challenge, do we not? So what if we saw this as like a positive, fun, abundant challenge of no, I’m going to make sure that I get my needs met, but how do I get it done? What do I need to do? Where do I need to go? I don’t know. This feels like a scavenger hunt rather than like, “Oh no, the institution isn’t necessarily providing what I need and that sucks.” Kat Nic: I think at Michigan, it’s especially a scavenger hunt. I tell students all the time, one of the best things about Michigan is we have so many resources. We have so many offices. We have so many people that really their job is to work with students and meet their needs in a specific way. The International Center meets your needs in a specific way and the wellness coaching meets your needs in a specific way. The challenge, which I think like you’re saying is a positive thing, is to find all the places where your needs can be met and pick up those little breadcrumbs and string them together and design your own experience of having your needs met, making sure you are well, making sure that you have full wellness in graduate school because I feel like that’s the easiest thing to let go is making sure you’re eating, making sure you’re sleeping, making sure you’re getting accommodations, you’re getting the things you need. That’s also the most ridiculous thing to let go because you just let yourself go and you let everything go. You can’t let yourself go because that’s what you have. You are the one propelling yourself through graduate school. You can do this, but there are lots of resources out there to help you. It’s just finding all of them and piecing them together. Luckily, one person can lead you to another person, can lead you another person. So, it’s like a whole little chain, a whole little game that you get to play. Sam Hobson: I love it. Yeah. Yeah. We are so fortunate here at Michigan to have access to such an abundant amount of resources. Although they’re not always recognized because of the decentralization, that typically happens when there’s so much of something, right? My hope is that through chats with you and folks like you, we’ll get to learn a little bit more about all that’s available to us here. Kat Nic: Absolutely. Sam Hobson: So Kat, what does a disability access professional do? Kat Nic: Yes, great question. So, disability access professionals are really student-facing professionals. Obviously, we don’t spend all our time with students because then we’d get nothing else done and then you wouldn’t get any accommodations. But really, I would say half my time is meant just talking to students, meeting with students, especially at the beginning of the semester, a lot of what we call welcome meetings, which are just that they’re just that. They’re a meeting where we welcome you to our office, we tell you about resources, we get to know you, and we really explore what your disability barriers might be, what accommodations might be reasonable. The great thing about it is that you don’t have to have a diagnosis or know for sure that you need accommodations to meet with us. That’s why it’s a welcome meeting. It’s not anything scary, hopefully, or anything like that. It’s seriously just a chance to talk and see if this resource is a resource that would be beneficial to you long-term. So, that’s a lot of what I do is those meetings, and then we spend our time reviewing documentation. We do need some documentation for formal accommodations, although we have resources that we can point students to that don’t require documentation, but we do review with students what that looks like. It looks different in everyone’s case, and we’re very good at pointing students to how they can get it, even students without insurance, even students with barriers to certain things. We’re very resourceful at pointing you to what you need to get what you need. Then from there, once we review that, we really work with a team to make sure we’re being equitable, making sure we’re really meeting student barriers where they are, making sure we’re not missing anything. From there, once accommodations are approved, we do a lot of implementation. So, we work with faculty, we work with staff and departments to make sure students are getting the accommodations they’re approved for, making sure faculty understand the accommodations students are approved for, and doing things like making sure students understand how to get accommodations for the GRE or get accommodations for future testing or various things. So, it’s really lots of meeting with students, lots of reviewing documents and approving accommodations, and lots of implementation from there. Sam Hobson: Kat, what exactly are disability accommodations? Kat Nic: So disability accommodations are specific academic adjustments that are made to mitigate a specific barrier caused by a disability. Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, which governs the work we do, a disability is something that substantially limits one or more major life activities, which includes a lot of things that I don’t have time to list all of them, but things like learning and reading and lots of digestive functions and lots of different things all fall under that category. So, if you have a disability that majorly limits one of those things and you need an academic adjustment that is considered reasonable. So, reasonable basically just means that it’s not giving you an unfair advantage. It’s something that isn’t altering the curriculum. It’s just removing a barrier that gives you equal access to your curriculum. It can look a lot of different ways. People are very familiar with things like testing accommodations because those are pretty common, especially in undergrad, but we do things like dissertation accommodations and accommodations for prelims very commonly. It just depends on what your barrier looks like. So, if you don’t have a barrier to your prelims, that’s fantastic. If you do caused by a disability, then that’s something we can definitely explore and look at, “What is an adjustment that is reasonable and isn’t giving you an unfair advantage, but is helping you overcome that barrier that’s caused by your disability and causing you to not be able to show your true learning because your disability is getting in the way?” Sam Hobson: I really appreciate your notation of the exploratory aspect of working with you in your office that you don’t have to know exactly what the barriers are. You don’t have to know absolutely what you need. That feels really nice, especially as a person who doesn’t always know exactly what they need, but having the space to just chat it out and process and have someone ask you the question and be like, “Oh, maybe I do, or maybe I don’t.” You know what I mean? But to have that here feels safe and that feels really nice that you don’t have to figure it out all on your own. Kat Nic: Yeah. That’s completely our intent is it is. It’s an exploration. It’s a conversation. Really, we try our best. Obviously, we have some restrictions because of legal things and things like that, that we do have to be in that medical model space of looking for documentation, looking for barriers, but we really do try to make it conversational and explorational because no one knows exactly what they need or exactly what is even out there or an option. So, in asking questions like, “Do you have a barrier to the classroom? What happens when you try to pay attention to a three-hour lecture? What happens when you try to take a test or give an oral exam?” Asking those questions leads to, “Oh, maybe I do have a need caused by a disability,” or again, maybe it’s not a need caused by a disability, or maybe it’s a thing that is caused by a disability, but what I need is an academic coach through your office or things like that. We just have so many, again, so many options of what might meet your need. It might not be the thing you expected, but it might be something even better that’s going to meet your need a lot better. Sam Hobson: I love that. I love the possibilities that your office holds. Yeah. Kat, why might graduate students be less inclined to request for accommodations? Kat Nic: I think there’s probably more than two different reasons, but two different buckets of reasons. One bucket applies to students who have gotten accommodations in the past, and the other bucket applies to students that might be newly diagnosed or just pursuing a diagnosis or just learning that they might need to pursue a diagnosis or having a new barrier. So, the first bucket, students that have had accommodations, maybe through high school, maybe through undergrad. A lot of students rely on very basic testing accommodations because that’s all they need in undergrad and they get to graduate school and they might be in a program that doesn’t have the same type of tests. All of their assignments are papers and projects and maybe there’s like a prelim exam, but it’s not a sit down exam. It’s very much like a project or a paper again and they’re like, “Well, my accommodations I had in undergrad don’t apply. So, why would I use it now?” And then there’s the bucket of people who are new to the disability space. I think there’s a lot of different reasons that people new to the disability space might be hesitant or not getting accommodations. One is obviously they don’t know about our office or they don’t know that it applies to them. That happens a lot. A lot of students might know that some things are disability, but not others. We unfortunately find a lot of students that don’t know that mental health illnesses and chronic illnesses are disabilities. They are. They obviously impact one or more major life activities, usually multiple life activities, but students don’t know. A lot of times we find students that came from backgrounds where they were taught to just suck things up or just absorb things and not ask for help and not get accommodations, not get help because that’s weakness. I mean, I don’t think that. I think that’s the opposite. I think getting help is one of the strongest things that people can do, but a lot of people come from those backgrounds and it’s hard to unpack all of that while you’re trying to stay in a full-time graduate program at the same time. I also think, I guess a third bucket that embraces both of the others is that there’s still, and I feel like step by step, we’re getting rid of the stigma a little bit, but there still is and this idea that our office doesn’t help graduate students. Our office helps undergrads and that graduate students are out on their own. I would hope that by hearing things like this, by connecting with other peers that are getting accommodations and resources and help through our office, that they would learn that we really aim to help graduate students as much as we help undergrads. It just might look a little different because your program looks a little different and your needs look a little different. We’re going to try our best to find ways to meet those things, but they’re just going to look a little different. We’re going to be a little more creative. Sam Hobson: Okay. That makes sense. Graduate school is a totally different beast. Because we haven’t necessarily had those exploratory conversations, we think that because what we did before doesn’t apply to now, therefore what we needed before no longer applies to now. Yeah. Yeah. Then asking for help in the first place is hard because particularly I feel like as graduate students in a place, particularly if you’re new, things are probably hard and scary already and then to acknowledge that assistance is needed could place people in the space of self-doubt. That is so easy to come by as a graduate student already. Kat Nic: We already have enough of it, right? Sam Hobson: We’re already there. So, yeah, I can understand how I just need to be able to do this by myself. If I can’t, then I’m not a good scholar in the first place. So, how do I prove that I deserve to belong here? Certainly not by making sure that I get what I need to thrive here, right? Because our brains are- Kat Nic: It couldn’t be that. Sam Hobson: Right, it couldn’t be that. Yeah. I hope that we can normalize the request, the recognition, even the processing of things aren’t working the way that I need them to work. Maybe I need to just go have that exploratory chat. There’s no stakes involved in terms of, okay, well, now I’m officially asking for official institutional accommodations, or maybe we can just have a chat about, “Hey, things aren’t necessarily working and I might not know why. What do you think?” I really appreciate the space for exploration that you all provide. Kat, how would you say that disability accommodations relate to environmental, emotional, and professional wellbeing? Kat Nic: Sure. That’s a great question. So, I think they relate to environmental wellbeing in that what we’re doing sometimes is altering the environment is making sure that it’s an environment that works for the student, that gives the student access. Sometimes we do that by putting something in the environment, by putting an interpreter in the environment, or putting captioning in the environment, or putting recording in the environment so the student can record their lectures or their meetings with their advisors or things like that. Sometimes it’s by removing something from the environment or making sure a student has a quieter space to be, a quieter space to test things like that. Just overall, I think when your needs are met, you start to realize that the environment becomes a lot safer for you. It’s not just the classroom or the testing space. It’s your whole life because you’re realizing that things are better and brighter because your needs are being met in that way with those disability accommodations. Emotional wellbeing from disability accommodations, I think, is one of those surprising benefits that is what really propelled me into this work is I think when people’s needs are being met, they find that they feel a lot lighter and they feel a lot more positive and hopeful going forward. I think that obviously burnout has a billion different causes. Unfortunately, I can’t just wave a magic wand and make it go away. I can’t wave a magic wand and make imposter syndrome go away or all the things that we encounter as graduate students that negatively impact our emotional wellbeing. However, what accommodations can do is make you stop on that hamster wheel of, “I’m not enough, I’m not enough, I’m not enough. I’m trying, I’m trying, I’m trying, but I’m not getting anywhere. Why is this happening?” Well, maybe it’s happening because you don’t have access to your learning. When you suddenly have access, it’s not going to make every problem better, but it is for me and for a lot of students I work with, it makes things finally make sense like, “Oh, I get why I feel like I was working 10 times harder than everyone else because I didn’t have the access that everyone else has. Now I do and things feel a lot brighter. I feel a lot better going forward.” Maybe I took the accommodation step and that was a really brave step. So, maybe I can take the therapy step or maybe I can take the wellness coaching step. I feel like each healthy step we take puts us in motion to take other good and well steps. So, I think getting accommodations for a lot of students is the gateway to doing a lot of other positive things for their emotional wellbeing as well. Sam Hobson: I appreciate how multi-layered disability accommodations can be in our lives, that it can help us to bring wellness to multiple aspects of who we are and not just, “Oh, can I take this test well?” or “Can I show up better in my academic space?” But that it reverberates out in a way that I’m not sure how much we talk about in terms of that disability accommodations in an academic space can actually support you on a holistic level. Yeah, I think that’s cool. So, Kat, what exactly is your research regarding this topic? Kat Nic: My research is on intersectionality and minority stress theory in students that identify as both LGBTQ+ more broadly and disabled. I’ve also looked more specifically at students that identify as trans or gender-nonconforming and disabled and how those intersections and the different stressors they encounter, but also the resiliencies they develop work in tandem together to influence different areas of wellness and wellbeing in their programs, especially at stress areas. So, beginning programs, especially beginning undergrad and then beginning graduate school, also times like prelims and dissertation defenses, really those big high stress. How do those more impact people or not who are multi-marginalized in those specific ways? Sam Hobson: What did you find? Kat Nic: I’ve found that positive things and areas that definitely need a lot of work. Research shows definitely that people who are multi-marginalized not only encounter a lot more stressors, a lot more adverse effects of disability and of culture and of a whole bunch of other things, but also that they can be less likely to ask for help for a multitude of different reasons. Maybe because of their other identity, their non-disabled identity, their trans identity, their LGBTQ identity, they’ve asked for help before and it hasn’t gone well, or they’ve found a lot of non-affirming spaces that didn’t meet their needs. So, why would disability services be any different? Why would that suddenly meet their needs? I also think for people who are multi-marginalized, it just can be exhausting to try to navigate your life as someone who has to be someone here and someone here and someone here and it never feels really integrated and not knowing like, “Okay, if I go to disability services, can I be my full self?” So I find a lot of the integration struggles, distrust a lot more, but we also find a lot of resiliency and a lot of students learning how to express their needs in one space, helping them express their needs in another space. Also, we find the power of partnerships. If a student has a positive experience in one space, so they have a positive experience with the Spectrum Center and the Spectrum Center refers them to our office, they’re much more likely to trust our office, to connect with our office because they know that that could be a positive experience because they had a positive experience somewhere else. They also can be more likely to know what their needs are because they’ve had to express them so many different times. So, it really shows up in a lot of different ways. I think that for disability professionals like myself, there is definitely the challenge. I think a lot of us think on a regular basis, how do we support students holistically that really their identities aren’t just disabled identity? No one’s identity is just a disabled identity, obviously. Everyone comes to us with layers and things that are best addressed by our office and things that are best addressed by other offices. But when you are multi-marginalized, definitely different challenges, different opportunities, and things that are, I think again, challenges in a positive way of, “How do we meet your needs? Where do we meet your needs? Where do you go next, and how do we keep you feeling like you’re not alone in where you go next if that place isn’t with us?” Sam Hobson: I want to honor that that feels like it’s a lot. It feels like it’s a lot of extra time, a lot of extra emails, a lot of extra meetings on top of all of the time and emails and meetings that we have to give to every other aspect of our department. I just want to honor that it’s not that this like, “Oh, it’s like just go and get your needs met.” It’s not necessarily something that is likely not 1000% accessible to people who need help with access, right? Yeah. Kat Nic: Yeah, it’s not. There’s not a perfect system, and I want to honor that as well. I want you to know the fact that being a graduate student that is disabled, that has other needs does, and I experienced this myself, feels unfair sometimes. It feels like, “Why do I have to do all these extra things that other people don’t have to do?” That’s not fun. There’s no simple answer for that, other than I learned in my own experience to honor those feelings and to work through those feelings and to say, “Yeah, this is not fair. This is not fair at all.” At the same time, it would be even less fair to myself to go without the things I need. It would be even less fair to not get my accommodations. That would be doing a huge disservice to myself to just try to tread water alone out here when I am literally drowning. I can’t do it anymore. I think for a lot of students, accommodations aren’t optional. They’re the things that we need to get through our programs. It’s hard when that hasn’t been the case in the past and we’re like, “Oh, we just need to work harder. Oh, we just need to do more.” But we tried that and that didn’t work and now we’re sicker and things are worse. So, I think as hard as it is, accommodations can be a gift to ourselves that is hard to give, but is worth it in the end, especially if it’s going to be the thing that’s going to cause you to graduate to if there’s no other way, then that’s the way it’s going to be. I will say that myself and my team, we do try to make sure that yes, it’s more emails, yes, it’s more connections, but we are doing that too. We’re alongside you. We’re sending emails to your faculty too. We’re helping you draft things if you need it. You’re not alone in, yes, it’s more work, yes, it’s harder, yes, it sucks, but you’re not alone in it. I tell students all the time, I’m an excellent problem solver, but a terrible mind reader. If you don’t tell me what’s going on, I can’t help you. I wish I could. I wish I knew so I could just take that away from you, but I can’t. So, sometimes the best thing you can do is just reach out for help and someone at least can help be there beside you, even though it does stink having all the extra work. Sam Hobson: I really appreciate that just this emphasis again that you don’t have to go through this alone, that yes, it’s more work, but you’re doing the work with you. That feels a lot less daunting, at least to me, on this end as a person who should have reached out for accommodations a decade ago. You said that in your work, you found that it wasn’t just the stressors, but also you looked into the resiliency that your participants had in the face of their challenges. Can you talk more about those? Kat Nic: Yeah, absolutely. So, I think that I really was so excited to see how participants develop the sense of resiliency in the face of real challenges and real stressors and things that, again, seem daunting and terrible. I think that a lot of students are propelled by a lot of different things. I think that my participants were propelled by really strong identity development. I think developing a disability identity alongside other identities that you have developed and you have learned to make part of who you are and to honor, I think that’s a really wonderful thing. I think disability identity development can be really, really difficult because we don’t treat disability the same way we treat like being LGBTQ. When you are queer, in a lot of ways, yes, it can be very difficult. There can be a lot of people against you, but there are also cultural spaces for it. There are also programs to connect with other people. It’s really treated as an identity, whereas disability oftentimes, unfortunately in our society especially, is treated as something to be fixed. It’s treated as something to be cured or something to be just find a solution to. I know that it could sound like that’s what accommodations are, but that’s not how I see accommodations because as someone who is chronically ill, I am never going to get better. Any level of accommodations aren’t going to make me not sick, but what they are going to do is, again, give me that access. I think there is a distinct difference in that. I think, again, having needs met gives you the space to then develop that identity of being disabled is another identity that I can see in a positive way. Yes, there are challenges. There are challenges for any identity that is marginalized by our society, and those challenges are not intrinsic in you necessarily. I’m not going to tell you how to think about your own disability, but a lot of people really resonate with a social model of disability, which is that what needs fixing per se is not in you. It’s in the society. The problem is not that you use a mobility aid. The problem is not that I use a mobility aid. It’s that there are not ramps for me to use my mobility aid and get to where I need to go. The problem is inherently in an ableist society or a society that is not built for people with different disabilities, which is, again, why accommodations, we’re really trying to change the environment. We’re not trying to change you. You are great the way you are. Your disability is great the way it is. Disability adds so much to our society. If we did not have people who are disabled, who are openly disabled, our society would lack so much, so much character, so much richness. I think the students that are able to develop that disability identity and find disability community really did develop this resiliency of my disability is part of who I am. Being queer is part of who I am. These two things can work together to make me who I am. I have found peers that also are both of these things and now I don’t feel alone. I feel like I can move forward and therefore I have developed this really awesome resiliency that has empowered me to jump into the next phase of my program and just overcome things that I couldn’t have done without developing those identities. Sam Hobson: Would you say that the development of that identity is necessary in community? That community is a necessary aspect of the development of that identity? Kat Nic: I’m not going to speak for everyone. I think a lot of people can do, or maybe, maybe people can do things on a solitary basis. I find, at least in my research, that very few people develop such an identity alone. A lot of times even finding out that accommodations are an option is something that happens in community. It’s something that happens when you befriend someone from your program and they go, “Hey, I connected with the SSD office. Maybe you should connect with the SSD office.” I think that it’s something where, yes, you can build it on your own. Yes, there is some development you will do on your own, but together we’re stronger. We figure out things that we didn’t see in ourselves because we’re just so internal and often so hard on ourselves. We’re so like, “I shouldn’t do X,” or “Why am I struggling with this?” When we get in community, we get out of our own heads. When we get in disability community, a disabled community with other people, we realize, oh, there are other people who have gone through this, who have figured out how to say, “No, this isn’t a problem. This is just part of who I am.” I think sometimes that’s really, really hard to do if you don’t have role models of it, if you don’t have other people who are doing it. I just think of growing up and not knowing I was queer because I had no role models of that. All of the queer people I knew were cis gay men and I knew I was not a cis gay man. So, I must not be gay, right? That must be it. I think that’s the same with disability, right? I don’t know any disabled people, therefore I can’t be disabled, therefore there’s just something wrong with me. I think, again, community can be such a helpful thing. I think one of the wonderful things about our office is there’s a lot of people who identify very openly as disabled. I identify very openly as disabled, and I think that can be an area of connection for students as well, to know there are people in this office who are disabled professionals doing the work. I think that helps people feel a lot more represented and less alone as well. Sam Hobson: Yes. What I’m hearing from you and what I’ve actually heard from a lot of different guests this season is the need for a perspective shift and how it’s really hard to shift one’s perspective without talking to other people. Yet graduate school is such a hyper individualistic space where we’re supposed to create knowledge alone in a corner somewhere, like hobbling over our computer, like a Gollum crunching out our knowledge, right? So I can imagine just what a necessary and needed balance that community provides for people in the graduate space where a perspective shift for numerous things. We’ve talked about imposter phenomenon, we’ve talked about resilience, we’ve talked about a sense of belonging, and we’ve talked about just even decoding the academy and what’s necessary for what do you really need to know. Everything comes down to that you need to talk to people. This idea that we have that is explicitly, implicitly, explicitly given by the institution or just higher education and academia in general, that this is something that you go out alone isn’t real and it doesn’t work. Yeah. So, I think the earlier we learn that, the better off it we’ll be. Kat Nic: And I do think, again, the earlier stages of your program are the times if you have them, I mean, obviously if you’re later in your program, there are ways to forge community, but I know that when I was early in my program, COVID hit and it was really, really hard to form those relationships with my cohort. I think that was a big problem. I think that programs and all of us could do a better job of making opportunities for students to just talk to each other or to have mentors or to have community because I do think that it’s a myth that anyone can be successful on their own. Everyone needs people and they need people like them. They need to be seen, they need to be reflected. I think the more marginalized identities you have or the more you’ve struggled, the more you need those things. Even though you might convince yourself that it’s the less you need those things because you’ve already struggled, so just keep pushing. That doesn’t work for anyone. Sam Hobson: Right. Can we talk about what does it mean to be in a graduate program five, six, seven, eight, nine years long and to be at the point where we’re like, “Well, we’ve pushed for so long, so hard. I mean, I made it this far. Why don’t I just keep going?” That seems logical, technically speaking. That’s an appropriate association brain-wise. What happens when we’re in something that is so different from our undergrad, so long in the journey? Yeah. Kat Nic: So I think that pushing against a solid brick wall is never going to yield no matter how hard you’re pushing, and you’re just going to hurt yourself ultimately. I think there’s different things that different people need and sometimes that thing is accommodations and sometimes that thing is support and sometimes that thing is deciding that the PhD is not for you and you need to pursue a different option. That’s the path I ended up taking. I’m always open to talking to students about it because I don’t think a PhD is for everyone. I don’t think quitting a program or mastering out or finding a different degree that isn’t the PhD that still serves you is weakness. Sometimes it’s the strongest thing you can do. Sometimes it’s saying, “I don’t even want to be faculty. Why am I doing this still? I am destroying my mental and physical health in a way that I can’t get back. I can always go back to school if I want or do something else. I can’t get my health back. I can’t get myself back.” So I think sometimes instead of pushing through that brick wall, which we can’t do, we need to figure out ways to go around it or things to remove the bricks, or sometimes we need to walk away from the wall and choose something else. Sam Hobson: Beautifully said. So, Kat, I know that we talked about this earlier, but could you elaborate a bit on the types of accommodations that a graduate student could receive here at Michigan and how we get them? Kat Nic: Yes, absolutely. So, the getting them part is always the same. It’s always connecting with our office, filling out our initial connection form, and then having a welcome meeting with a coordinator, likely me, but if you’re in a specialized program, it might be someone else. Or if I have 300 appointments and you can’t get in until February, we’d like to get you seen a little earlier. But the different types of accommodations really can be boiled down to classroom accommodations, especially for your first couple of years or however long you’re in coursework and testing accommodations, which doesn’t always have to look like written tests. There’s accommodations for oral tests, there’s accommodations for prelims, there’s things like that. There’s accommodations that going along with the classroom can modify things. So, if you are someone who has barriers to attendance or barriers to various different parts of your program participation, those would all fall under that classroom category as well. Then there’s accommodations that would be more like dissertation accommodations or accommodations to aid you through that process. Those are going to look really, really individualized based on what your needs are. They might not have ever been done before and I might need to have a conversation with your program about what your needs are. I never go into specifics about what your disability is, just about what needs need to be met. They can be accommodations around communication or accommodations around structure, things like that, especially when you get into those later phases. Then there are accommodations for defenses. So, if you need to change the environment of the defense or there’s certain things for the defense that need to be altered, those are another category. Sam Hobson: Wonderful. Besides your office, are there any other resources that you recommend graduate students to reach out to when we are in this exploratory phase? Kat Nic: So we connect students with a lot of different resources. Obviously, there’s SSD specifically, which is the accommodation focus. Then there is our academic support arm of our larger office, and that does one-on-one coaching, which can be really, really helpful for students with disabilities who need to figure out time management around breaking down their dissertation, especially when they get into those dissertation phases, that can be the number one thing they need. I know a lot of students who don’t need accommodations, they just need that. We also have things like scholarships through our office that can be used not just for semester funding, but for specific things. If you need a piece of technology or something and you have a disability barrier, we have things like that. But outside of our larger unit, I refer students to CAPS and Uwill, Wellness Coaching, lots of those holistic resources, the International Center, the Spectrum Center, really just different ways to wellness for whoever you are and how you make sense of your identity and how you navigate this huge, decentralized beast that we all have to figure out. Sam Hobson: Thank you, Kat. I am so grateful. Thank you for this conversation. Thank you for bringing not only your expertise, but your perspective in not just your research, but also your experience. Thank you. Kat Nic: Thank you for having me. Sam Hobson: Okay. Here are three takeaways for your wellbeing journey. One, as graduate students, we tend to be even less inclined to request for accommodations. We’re in a space of a lot of firsts, and what used to work for us over there may not work for us over here, and that is okay. Number two, you don’t need to figure out what you need on your own. Figuring out what you need should be an exploratory process and is most easily done in collaboration with others. Three, an exploratory chat with SSD does not mean that you’re asking for official accommodations. It just helps you figure out what you need and how to best meet those needs. You deserve to have your needs met. Check out our website for all the resources Kat mentioned and more at rackham.umich.edu/gradwell. You can reach out to Kat with any questions you have at katnic, K-A-T-N-I-C, @umich.edu. You can contact us about the podcast at [email protected]. Make sure to join us next time when I speak with Dr. Patricia Deldin, professor of psychology and psychiatry here at Michigan about an alternative intervention to traditional mental healthcare that she created. I’ll see you then. Hey, hardworking grad student. Thank you for tuning into Gradwell. I hope you can take something away from this episode with you. If you like what you heard, be sure to write a review, like, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. For more information, check us out on social, @UMichGradSchool.
