New Bruin placed third in The Braille Challenge

She was 6 years old when she cracked the code. Janie Brunson picked up a book and could connect the raised patterns of dots through the touch of her fingertips.

It finally clicked.

“I was getting better at learning (braille) but I was struggling. I couldn’t really piece words together,” Brunson said. “I remember this one day … I was all of a sudden like, ‘Oh, I can read.’”

Now a first-year English student at UCLA, braille is a part of her daily life: from when she navigates her surroundings and finishes class assignments, to when she writes short stories filled with imagery.

This year, Brunson placed third among students in her age group for her skills in reading and writing braille in The Braille Challenge, a competition open to blind students across the country and Canada.

Diagnosed at birth with bilateral retinal dysplasia, a rare disease that causes blindness, Brunson has competed in the competition for the past 10 years. The competition tests students in braille reading comprehension, accuracy, speed and proofreading.

“I (didn’t) really set up a time to train for (the competition),” Brunson said. “I just read braille every single day.”

In order to prepare for the upcoming school year and become familiar with UCLA’s campus, Brunson moved into her dorm about a month ago. Her mother, Teresa Brunson, stayed with her at UCLA for part of the time, so she could help her get around campus.

Teresa Brunson said she thinks a major factor in her daughter’s decision to attend UCLA was her desire to be independent.

“We looked at a lot of smaller private universities, which might have been my preference. But Janie said to me, ‘The only way I’m ever going to be able to manage and live is to go to a real city,’” Teresa Brunson said. “She told me she needed to stress herself.”

Though Janie Brunson was initially worried about attending a large public university away from home, she said her experiences at UCLA have been positive so far.

When introducing herself to her future roommate in an email, she said she was nervous about telling her that she is blind.

“I kinda get self conscious about (telling people I’m blind),” Brunson said. “I don’t know how people are going to react, some people are awkward about it. But (my roommate) was totally cool about it.”

UCLA has about one blind undergraduate student and one blind graduate student per grade level, said Ed McCloskey, assistant director of relations and services at the UCLA Office for Students with Disabilities.

This year, there are three blind students entering UCLA, including Brunson, he added.

Brunson likes to write stories in her free time, filling her creative writing with descriptions of images that she has picked up from reading a lot of books.

She said she noticed that her favorite books were filled with imagery.

“And so even though I can’t really see for myself, I guess I got a good idea how to describe things just from my reading,” she said.

[Editor’s note: Listen to Brunson share one of her short stories with Daily Bruin Radio here.]

To record her thoughts in braille or write one of her short stories, Brunson uses a small black BrailleNote machine, on which she crafts words by pushing on different combinations of its nine keys.

Below the keyboard a display of words in braille emerges, enabling her to read what she has written.

At UCLA, Janie Brunson plans on being involved with mock trial. And after receiving her undergraduate degree, she hopes to pursue a career in law and to write a novel.

One of Teresa Brunson’s hopes for her daughter is that she will be independent and not have to rely on other people to give her business opportunities in the future.

“She’s always going to need to be dependent on some level, but I don’t want her livelihood to be dependent on someone giving her a chance ,” Teresa Brunson said.

She added that she thinks it will be difficult for Janie Brunson to have equal hiring opportunities unless society changes in the next eight to 10 years.

At UCLA, the Office for Students with Disabilities tries to assist blind students by helping them with transportation and academic materials, McCloskey said. 

For example, the office holds training sessions to help visually impaired students navigate the campus. Students with disabilities can also ride in the office’s van, which will drop them off at specific locations on campus.

McCloskey said the office works to ensure that all academic materials are accessible to blind students, and some textbooks have to be transcribed in braille or changed to audio book formats for students.

But because Janie Brunson is so fast at reading braille, she said she often prefers to read books instead of listening to audio versions of them.

Both Janie Brunson’s mother and older brother, Alec Brunson, said they think Janie Brunson’s perceptiveness and determination allow her to push past her comfort zone.

“If you just sit down and think about it, I don’t know if I would go off to college if I couldn’t see,” Alec Brunson said. “There’s just so much going on.”

Whenever he hears one of Janie’s stories, Alec Brunson is impressed by his little sister’s talent for writing.

Janie Brunson said she looks forward to her English classes at UCLA and continuing to write creatively.

“I kind of try to … have some hope in everything I write,” she said. “Because even though the world can seem (like) a really depressing place sometimes, there is a lot of good in it and I like to bring that out in contrast to some of the more unpleasant things that are in it.”

 

Contributing reports by Agnijita Kumar and Stephen Phan, Bruin senior staff.