{"id":18856,"date":"2015-04-02T16:40:41","date_gmt":"2015-04-02T20:40:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/greatminds\/?p=18856"},"modified":"2015-07-19T21:20:02","modified_gmt":"2015-07-20T01:20:02","slug":"celebrating-acceptance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/greatminds\/2015\/04\/02\/celebrating-acceptance\/","title":{"rendered":"Celebrating Acceptance"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Nicole Dobson can\u2019t keep her fingers off her hot pink iPhone.<\/p>\n<p>In the few minutes\u2019 walk from her room in Willard Hall to the ITCC, the UMW senior\u2019s Facebook \u201clikes\u201d have revved up.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c182,\u201d she says, eyes glued to the screen in her hands. \u201c183!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Dobson\u2019s mid-March post? \u201cBIG DAY \u2013 I have been accepted to \u2026 Columbia University.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/umwwebmaster.wpengine.com\/greatminds\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2015\/04\/Nicole-2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"18858\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/greatminds\/nicole-2\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/greatminds\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2015\/04\/Nicole-2.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"1800,1188\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;Norm Shafer@2015&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"Nicole-2\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/greatminds\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2015\/04\/Nicole-2-300x198.jpg\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/greatminds\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2015\/04\/Nicole-2-1024x676.jpg\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-18858\" src=\"http:\/\/umwwebmaster.wpengine.com\/greatminds\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2015\/04\/Nicole-2-300x198.jpg\" alt=\"Nicole-2\" width=\"300\" height=\"198\" srcset=\"\/\/www.umw.edu\/greatminds\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2015\/04\/Nicole-2-300x198.jpg 300w, \/\/www.umw.edu\/greatminds\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2015\/04\/Nicole-2-768x507.jpg 768w, \/\/www.umw.edu\/greatminds\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2015\/04\/Nicole-2-1024x676.jpg 1024w, \/\/www.umw.edu\/greatminds\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2015\/04\/Nicole-2-1140x752.jpg 1140w, \/\/www.umw.edu\/greatminds\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2015\/04\/Nicole-2.jpg 1800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Rewind nearly a decade to another big day.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI faced things no 13-year-old should have to face,\u201d said Dobson, who was asleep in the backseat of her family\u2019s minivan when an 18-wheeler slammed it from behind. She was thrown through a window and 30 feet from the car; suffered a traumatic brain injury, 11 broken bones, and a punctured lung; and spent three weeks in a coma.<\/p>\n<p>As she pushed through therapy, learning to walk, talk \u2013 and think \u2013 all over again, the young field hockey player from Santa Fe realized she\u2019d never be the same. Now, UMW and its Center for International Education (CIE) have proven her right. Just not in the way she\u2019d imagined.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHaving totally been outshone in high school, I felt like college presented an opportunity for me to stand out,\u201d said Dobson, who formed UMW\u2019s Diversability club as a freshman.<\/p>\n<p>She\u2019d spend the next four years growing the group, which raises awareness of students with visible challenges, like being blind, and less obvious ones, including dyslexia.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was definitely a defining accomplishment,\u201d she said. \u201cIt taught me so much that my courses couldn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>If Diversability was the crown on Dobson\u2019s college career, study abroad made it shine.<\/p>\n<p>She spent summer 2013 in Bilbao, Spain, on scholarship, with Associate Professor of Spanish and CIE Director Jose Sainz. But it was last spring\u2019s return trip \u2013 this one on UMW\u2019s prestigious Grellet C. Simpson International Scholarship \u2013 that helped shape her future, giving her the kind of experience grad schools take seriously.<\/p>\n<p>Dobson dove into her studies at the Universidad de Deusto, soaked up the Basque countryside, and took one extra step. She volunteered, teaching English to a variety of children. That\u2019s when she met Uxue (pronounced \u201coo-soo-ay\u201d), an 8-year-old, with a pair of pigtails and just-lost front teeth, who\u2019d been born without hearing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt first, I was like, \u2018how do you teach a deaf child English?\u2019 \u201d Dobson said of the girl she learned had received hearing-enabling cochlear implants at 6 months.<\/p>\n<p>Uxue still struggled with stuttering and language delay, and Dobson knew she\u2019d need to feel safe before she could learn, so she worked to coax her out of her shell and build a rapport with her family.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese were incredible experiences that Nicole sought on her own,\u201d Sainz said of Dobson, who will graduate with honors and also was accepted to George Washington University. \u201cWhat I am most amazed by is her capacity to help others. It goes beyond cultures.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Her time at Mary Washington winding down, Dobson recently turned Diversability over to a younger club member, saying goodbye to a big part of her past. She came home from that meeting to find the email from her No. 1 school and say hello to her future as a bilingual speech pathologist.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI wanted to show everyone I could be something more. I never imagined getting into Columbia,\u201d Dobson said. \u201cThis is the life worth living.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tragedy fuels Nicole Dobson\u2019s journey to success.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":90,"featured_media":18857,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"umw_cb_additional_links":[[]],"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_advisory_expires_time":"","_advisory_meta_include":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[4,81],"tags":[95],"class_list":{"0":"post-18856","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-show","8":"category-umw-home","9":"tag-international-education","10":"entry"},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.3 (Yoast SEO v27.3) - 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