Back to School... with a Broken Wrist

This summer was great (I’ll post more on that later), but one thing that wasn’t so great was that I broke my right wrist.  I fell off my road bike and am now in a cast for another 2 weeks (hopefully - cross your fingers for me!).  This created a few weird situations at the end of my internship when the senior directors came to shake my hand and I had to awkwardly ask for a left hand shake or try and make the pity party into a joke and ask for a fist bump (when the situation was right… I could usually get a laugh).

Now, on campus, my broken wrist also poses a few other problems beyond shaking hands.  Since so much of life here is reliant on doing work, taking notes, and producing quality work quickly, I had to come up with some solutions.  While typing on my laptop keyboard is painful and slow because of the rotation of my wrist, the real part I was worried about was if professors would let me take notes on my computer in class.  Since I’m right handed, I write like a 5 year old and take up most of a piece of paper to write one sentence.  At Tuck, a lot of professors ask that no laptops are used in class and some are strict.  This proves to be a policy to keep people engaged in the conversations, which is great.  I am lucky that I’m at a school small enough that I knew a few of my professors for this term by first name and could ask about their strict policies directly.  All professors were entirely understanding about my “disability” and are happy to have me take notes on my computer.  This is a (tiny) example of how the community around us wants to do everything they can to help us succeed- small or large.  Professors, in the larger picture, are generally accommodating when there is an issue if you approach them before and have a rational reason.

I’m meeting with the doctor soon, but in the meantime, cross your fingers for me!