John Dennison aims for the court room

Student profile

Name

John Dennison

Hometown

Columbia, Mo.

Major

Economics and sociology

Year in school

Senior

Disability

C4/C5 spinal cord injury from a car accident in February 2006

Educational focus

Just finishing my application for law school at MU.

Future endeavors

Becoming a lawyer and eventually a judge and maybe one day teaching at a law school.

Hobbies

Huge movie buff, video games, just getting into making my own beer.

Greatest challenge at MU

Overall accessibility on campus especially, with all the construction of late. I can't write very well, so it's a challenge to take notes in class and longer essay tests — or testing in general.

What people should know about my disability

A lot of people with physical disabilities haven't always had them. It always seems to come as a shock to people that I used to play football since I'm in a wheelchair.

Advice for students with similar disabilities

Especially with an accommodation, ask for help if you think it will be helpful. The worst that can happen is you may not qualify for that accommodation, but most times everyone is more than happy to help.

Advice for new MU students

If you have a question about anything, ask. That goes for everything. If you have a question about class, ask your professor. If you have questions and you don't know who to ask, ask a councilor and that person will find who should be asked. This took until my senior year to get used to doing, but the campus has a lot of well-informed staff and it's a lot quicker and more efficient to ask for help than to try and find answers yourself.

How the Office of Disability Services makes a difference

Handicapped-accessible rarely means wheelchair-accessible, but the MU campus does really well with both because of the Office of Disability Services.