{"id":2477,"date":"2017-11-08T12:27:28","date_gmt":"2017-11-08T12:27:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/?p=2477"},"modified":"2023-03-22T12:40:29","modified_gmt":"2023-03-22T12:40:29","slug":"my-cardiff-is-changing-the-way-we-think-of-disability","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/2017\/11\/08\/my-cardiff-is-changing-the-way-we-think-of-disability\/","title":{"rendered":"My Cardiff is\u2026 changing the way we think of disability"},"content":{"rendered":"

Charlie Knights (Criminology and Social Policy 2014-)<\/span> is the students with disabilities officer at Cardiff University.<\/p>\n

\u201cHonestly, Cardiff wasn\u2019t my first choice. I\u2019d been to a few Open Days, but it wasn\u2019t top of my list when applying. Yet whilst coming here wasn\u2019t quite what I had planned, it\u2019s ended up being really right for me.<\/p>\n

In my teens, I was diagnosed with a number of mental health conditions. My school were very good about it and I received counselling, but the experience led me to realise nobody was talking about mental health. That was a problem.<\/p>\n

I felt passionately about it and started doing talks; since then I\u2019ve always been involved with campaigns around disability. Obviously, that\u2019s fed into my role as Students with Disabilities Officer at Cardiff.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Did you know you\u2019re more likely to be hired by NASA if you\u2019re dyslexic? It\u2019s because dyslexic people tend to be better at visualising a 3D space, they can look at a 2D blue print and envision it in full. Disabilities aren\u2019t as limiting as they\u2019re perceived to be!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

My experience of the student support service here is two-fold; when I\u2019ve gone to speak to the team about my mental health, they\u2019ve been incredible. But professionally, I\u2019ve also been pleasantly surprised by the eagerness of the staff \u2013 they really want to be involved with what I do.<\/p>\n

As a guy, one of my current concerns is male suicide \u2013 it is the biggest killer of men under 45, and that\u2019s a huge deal. We hear that anything from a third to three quarters of students will experience anxiety or depression during university and I think that\u2019s awful.<\/p>\n

I struggle with depression on a daily basis, but with the right support at least I\u2019ve got to grips with it. Student life is busy, almost chaotic; to be first struck with mental health issues during an exam season would be very difficult. You need the right services, and that\u2019s what I\u2019m working on.<\/p>\n

I want to create consistency in extenuating circumstances across Schools and seasons, I\u2019ve started a steering group; hopefully we\u2019ll be able to create equality for students and simplify the process for the university too. Win-win!<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think being involved with this kind of campaigning will ever leave me; it\u2019s an integral part of who I am. My ultimate dream is entertainment TV \u2013 maybe I can be the next Graham Norton. Chatting to celebs – but also raising the issues that really matter from time-to-time.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Charlie Knights (Criminology and Social Policy 2014-)<\/span> is the students with disabilities officer at Cardiff University.<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"author":1080,"featured_media":2492,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,38,80],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cardiff-connect","category-our-alumni","category-social-sciences"],"meta_box":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1080"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2477"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2477\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2546,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2477\/revisions\/2546"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}