Goal
Wants to fulfill his dream of earning a college degree.
Bio
Phil is a retired army veteran who is now successful in business. This is his third attempt to earn his degree and he has 127 credits so far. Phil enjoys being a student and contributing in class.
He and his wife live in Norfolk, Virginia. Their two adult children live nearby.
He was medically retired from the military after an encounter with an improvised explosive device (IED) led to a traumatic brain injury (TBI), post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and low vision. The TBI affects his cognition and he often has difficulty sleeping. He wants to use his experience to assist vets in similar situations.
Frustrations
- Courses that have a lot of readings, particularly PDFs that are low-quality scans
- Required readings aren’t differentiated from non-essential ones
- Lack of flexibility in assignments prevents him from catching up after difficult weeks
- New course material introduced at the last minute that isn’t compatible with his assistive technology
- When extended time for exams has not been set up
Works Best When
- He can magnify online content to 400% without distortion
- He can view and magnify content on a mobile device
- Assignments have clear instructions and deadlines
- He is able to listen to material as well as read it
- Course content is provided as real text and not images of text
- Course content has good color contrast
- Images have good resolution, high color contrast, and readable font
- Videos are short and have captions and transcripts
Created by Penn State World Campus, 2017
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Photograph is a stock image and not subject to the CC license.