TL;DR Applying for PhD and asked volunteer experience. I requested ADHD accommodations and am the first student in my alma mater to get extra time on exams. I didn't do it solely for other people such as representing or assisting a mentally ill friend, for instance. I did it for me but expect it would be beneficial to other/future ADHD students. Could that count as volunteering?
Super long version of events:
Happy ADHD Awareness Month!
Present:
- I'm applying for a PhD government funding in country A which asks for volunteer work as part of social responsibility or something like that.
Past:
In January 2016, I took my final semester of masteral studies in applied maths in country B. I had finished all but one (as the then-chair of my department pointed out twice) class, including thesis and was mostly tutoring undergrads at a nearby tutorial center.
Still, I exercised my rights and appealed just in case (turns out useful for GRE). This was for extra time on exams (besides other accommodations) based on my ADHD that I discovered I had in August 2015, after 15 and a half years lack of treatment after my apparently having been diagnosed.
I had no idea about disability offices or whatever. Apparently I had asked about it on stackexchange but forgot about it. Then for certain reasons (privacy likely but might be forgetting something), I asked elsewhere instead of stackexchange about this.
I told my professor about my ADHD who suggested #2 in appeals below who referred me to #3 then #4, who surprisingly brought in #5 to the discussion. (Good to know #5 remembers I'm from country A (then again I'm the only in class who doesn't speak the language of country B) and #4 has a relative in country A.)
Result: I was denied extra time for my first exam.
(more details in revision history)
I went back to #2 and #3 below: They knew about disability offices but didn't tell me because of I guess strong arming or whatever was that term from House of Cards (not a political guy, but I guess I soon will/should be if I were to become a PhD student). (Also #3 said ADHD isn't a mental illness despite #3's son having ADHD. I suspect #3 has ADHD as well.)
Result: I was granted extra time on my second and third exams.
(more details in revision history)
Thus I was able to show my newfound empathy to my university as it had shown empathy to me throughout the course of my graduate studies.
Thus, I was able to contribute to neurodiversity, understanding, empathy, mental health stigma reduction and the development of the disability office: This may be the first country B disability office.
For the events above, I appealed to (in order):
- my (one) class (left) professor,
- the head of the university counselling/guidance office,
- the head (and only member of) the (not yet set up) disability office,
- the dean of the graduate students,
- the chair of my department,
- the former dean of student services (and then dean of something else)
- the dean of sciences
- the soon to be old vice president (ended after my graduation) in person and impromptu with mediation from #4
the new vice president (starting after my graduation) by email
- (more details in revision history)
(Near) Future:
One university I'm applying requests a diversity essay.
Is it bad/unprofessional or something, besides redundant, to put these events in both volunteer work and (neurodiversity) essay?
Ignore if this doesn't count as volunteer work in the first place.
