Tim Smith

Student

“I love seeing young people coming here from all over the world: Japan, Italy, France, Africa. Coming from Minnesota, it’s just astonishing.”

Like a lot of people studying at SMC, Tim Smith is bright, funny, personable, disciplined, and determined to succeed. But unlike a lot of students, Tim is also disabled. “Learning disabilities come out in a lot of different ways: some people have problems socially, for instance. As for myself, I have an extremely hard time reading. Printed words all look like a code that blurs together. It takes me about eight times as long to read a book,” he explains. “So reading, writing, and spelling are all problems. And without them, I can’t do math either.”

Tim’s disability was diagnosed when he was in sixth grade. “I got tutoring that didn’t help at all, so I just bounced from program to program. By the time I got pushed through the system, I didn’t know anything. So now I’m on my own, and I have to come up with a plan that will work.” Fortunately, Tim is getting help with his plan at the SMC Center for Students With Disabilities.

“They’re helping me develop a program that will make me a success at SMC,” says Tim. “I’m focused, and this is my goal. And I plan to either go into teaching theater arts or try being an actor.” Tim says that SMC has given him “good feelings about my future. But I’ve had to learn to be up front about my problems because if you’re shy about asking for help, you just get more screwed up. The whole point of going to school is to succeed,” he adds. “And if you’re not honest, you’re going to fail.”

Tim says he often questions whether he deserves the help he needs. “I go into the Center and there’s someone in a wheelchair, or deaf, or who can’t use their limbs. But then I think, ‘No. I need this help too.’ Because otherwise I’m not going to make it. And SMC is one of the few places in the country that can give me the kind of help that I need to do what I have to do.”

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