Last week I severely injured my ankle playing basketball and have been boot-bound for the foreseeable future. Along with my clunky boot, I have been using crutches to get around. Here is what the experience has been like so far.
Starting off, I had a ton of issues figuring out how I would be able to get to class. I live off-campus, so I wouldn’t benefit from the Wolfpack Pick Up service. Luckily I was able to get a temporary accessible parking pass through the DMV, but upon driving to class Monday morning I was made aware of the fact that I still couldn’t park on campus. The very nice man that works at the parking monitor gate told me I was still required to purchase an on-campus parking pass, even though I had the DMV pass already. He helped me figure out what to do, but unfortunately I still had to pay to park that entire day, and I had to park far from my classes and walk. I was able to get an on-campus parking pass before my classes Tuesday, and from then on it was smooth-sailing in that regard. But then I encountered a bigger issue.
As everyone knows, NC State LOVES themselves a brick. The entire campus, for the most part, is made of brick. I knew the perils of wet bricks, but I discovered a new issue with NC State’s chosen walkway material. Maybe it’s due to my inexperience with crutches, but I found myself tripping over crooked bricks every few minutes. Along with that, as an English major most of my classes are in Tompkins and Caldwell. The distance from the accessible parking to my class is not very far, but the hill is decently steep. Everytime I walk down that hill I struggle to maintain my balance with the crutches, not to mention if I happen to trip over a brick at that moment… Game Over… Albeit I probably could go to the front of the building and then take the elevator, but given that my classes are on the bottom floor, it would take me significantly longer to get to my classes that way.
Another issue that I encountered is that some buildings are quite far from any parking. One example would be the Student Union. Talley is a building that I frequent, whether it be to study, to eat, to print papers, etc. Normally I walk to Talley so parking isn’t a problem, but obviously that isn’t really an option right now. When I drove there and looked for parking I realized there wasn’t anything close to Talley. The closest accessible parking spots are the two in front of Price Music Center, which arguably are not very close. I know that due to the location it isn’t feasible to add more parking, but the fact that there are only two accessible parking spots within a short distance of Talley seems wrong.
All-in-all I wouldn’t say that NC State has the most accessible campus. Yes, they do things in order to help people who have handicaps or mobility issues, but there’s only so much they can do. I understand that the campus was built a long time ago, and times have changed since then. I also understand that they can’t totally rework the campus to be accessible without making major changes and spending a lot of money. But there are definitely some things that could be done to help students and staff who have either permanent or temporary mobility issues.