I will never forget the second day of my qualifying exams in graduate school. I woke up around 6 a.m. to a distinctive and recognizable cramping in my abdomen and spent the next several hours in the bathroom, navigating an episode of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). Those hours were punctuated by frantic phone calls to the graduate program assistant’s office, hoping to catch her the moment she arrived so that we could make a plan for how I would navigate my exam under the circumstances. When I finally got in touch, our best idea was that I would take my remaining exam in a separate room, proctored by her, and we would pause the clock when I needed to go throw up or manage other digestive distress.
Reflecting on this experience 15 years later through the lens of disability studies, I feel grateful that I was offered last-minute accommodations. Many...
