This past semester was my first term at the University of Maryland, the first month or so had to have been one of the best scholastic experiences I have ever had. However it was shorted lived. I am a commuter to the university, and it's not walk in the park either I commute from Annapolis to the school, which to college park depending on traffic can be roughly 45-50 minutes on average. Then from there I would have to walk from the farthest garage on campus (slim pickings for a transfer student).
All that was fine of course until I fractured my ankle one fateful night on April 2nd. I brushed it off as a normal sprain, being a skateboarder I see a lot of that, but upon arriving home I knew it was different. The swelling increase dramatically and while I was at the hospital (later on) it was in severe pain. I remember cussing out the nurse taking down my information because I couldn't think of my address or even cared because it hurt so badly.
Anyone of you that's fractured something knows that you can't be digging around inside anything thats swollen especially an ankle, and even worse it got some severe damage to the area, and developed a like huge blood pocket that when it popped left a scab on my foot for well... it still has some remains as we speak nearly 2 months later. This damage rendered me unable to drive until today, so that means I wasn't able to go to school, attend classes regularly, and would need to be driven to the college for my finals.
My major concern of course was... how am I going to pass when I can't even attend class, many of my classes required attendance and even one had a computer clicker system where you answer questions in class for about 1/3 of your grade. I couldn't even fathom at the time that I would be out of school for that long, I thought it would be 2 weeks swelling gone and walking. I was wrong, I contacted all my teachers and told them my situation, at first some seemed a bit skeptical, but I did have a note from my orthorpedic surgeon that basically said I can't walk for 6 weeks.
To my surprise ever single one of my teachers was incredibly understanding, I was so pleased with how they all handled it and proud that my school had such policies in please and staff that were so willing to help a student truly in a bad situation. I handled any handwritten assignments via email, and as for the clicker system my teacher would email me the slides he showed in class so that I could submit the answers to him before the class that had them would even start. I was able to track all of my classes and keep good contact with my teachers via email.
This wasn't the first time I had done school online but this was my best experience by far, typically in online classes you just fill out quizzes and tests on an online environment you can email the teacher if you really need to but it's not required. Not only that but any exams that I missed the first week (2 exams because the first week I seriously couldn't even move it hurt so bad), I was allowed to retake later on.
Then came even more surprises, I couldn't get into surgery for like 5 weeks, and the date I got fell 2 days shy of my first final, luckily I had no finals on the same days so I would have all night to study and refresh myself before each exam. I did a bunch of studying before my surgery since I knew that the medicine I was going to get was going to seriously affect my ability to read and pay attention. So I studied and got all my exams done, I was driven by my parents and then would crutch to the class, lucky for me again that all of the college is very handicap accessible, I would say at most i would have to crutch about 100 feet to any given class.
When it was all said in done I finished my first semester at UMD with a 3.0, and while I would normally shoot a little higher than that, considering I missed half the semester and a lot of hands-on learning I was really proud of myself 
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But yeah that was my first experience ever with an injury and school. I would have to say the University of Maryland really took care of me, I am really thankful to my teachers and my parents for putting up with the situation, I'm just glad I didn't get a house or appt. this semester or that would have really been a mess hahaha.
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