Has anyone encountered discrimination at university?

Hi guys,

So I’m a masters student at the university of Birmingham, I have autism ADHD and dyspraxia and have made this crystal clear to the university.

So the situation is, I had a meeting with uni (specifically the disability team) at the beginning of the semester about my RAP (reasonable adjustments plan) and if I needed anymore adjustments etc and I explained to them about the difficulty I had with the exam I sat last semester )the exam conditions) and they suggested I could do extended/online exams, which I said yes too.

Anyway, I contacted the welfare team a couple weeks ago to get the ball rolling so they couldn’t say I didn’t give them enough time, and they’re now denying those adjustments saying it’s unfair on other students and claiming they’ve never done it in the past for people (which must be lies because people had online exams during covid??) so I told the disability team and they’re now in ‘negotiations’ with the welfare department. I actually asked one of our lecturers this semester about online exams, and he said they have done them and have even uploaded examples of online exam papers they’ve done in the past? My exams this semester are worth 80%, so I could potentially fail this exam if my conditions aren’t altered with the recommendations been given by the disability service.

I’ve gotta be honest, idk if I wanna take a leave of absence or just leave in general because they’ve been awful to me since I started. I haven’t been in all last week and this week because I’ve suffered a big autistic burn out. I feel I’m being failed by the university, with them being such a prestigious institution, I really had high hopes of them supporting me.

Any ‘adjustments’ they’ve made so far have been terrible, the exam room I was in was ridiculously noisy with people talking directly outside the room and slamming doors, they said I could have rest breaks but never put it on my RAP even when I asked them too and then they said I could have a mock exam (for an exam last semester) and I said I’d like that, but they never organised it despite me chasing them about it.

I’m pretty much done with it all now, I’ve hit my breaking point. So I don’t know if I should defer until next year (I don’t think it’ll get rid of my issues tho) or just leave.

Has anyone else experienced this? If so, what have you done about it?

(edited 1 year ago)

Reply 1

ayleybeee

Original post by jade_willer

Hello

I'm so sorry to hear you've experienced this too, I hope you're feeling a bit better now. I have ADHD possibly autism too but I go to London Met and experienced the same as you. At the beginning of the year I was contacted by disability services to help put an INAR in place (adjustments basically) and at the time they asked me what I would like and offered me extra time for assignments and I said yes of course. Little bit down the line I try and contact them when I'm struggling with a deadline and basically get told I wouldn't be allowed this because DDS can't provide this and the uni doesn't give extra time so I would have to apply for Mitigating Circumstances (which you need proof for) so I did that, provided proof and everything and they rejected it based on the fact it was for my ADHD... lol, so I had to do my essay in 2 days :/ and this continued all year with them putting me in circles and saying they could help but then actually couldn't.

The last essay I had to do, I was told to contact the students union who ended up phoning me saying there was nothing they could do but that I should put in a formal complaint because I'm not the only student who has had problems with this.

There was so much more as well but I don't want to bore you haha but I just got my results today and they failed me for the entire year and gave me a resit project to do to pass... But I've applied for another Uni and hopefully can transfer there after I pass this project :frown: