Woman with downs syndrome becomes first person to graduate with Master’s degree
An American woman has become the first person with down syndrome to be awarded a Master's degree.
Rachel Handlin, 26, recently got her Master’s in Fine Arts (MFA) at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York.
Speaking proudly at her graduation, her father, Jay Handlin, said no one knew that this was going to be a possibility.
“Rest assured that when she was born, nobody at Mount Sinai Hospital told us that this was a possibility,” he said in video posted on his daughter’s Instagram page.
On the same video, Handlin expressed herself and said she was proud of her a new achievement.
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“It makes me feel excited and proud,” she said gleefully.
For her thesis, Handlin took photos of other students with down syndrome who graduated with degrees.
She travelled as far as London and Peru to take the pictures.
Last year, while Handlin was still busy with her Master’s, she took Rubys Rainbow, a Youtube channel, to her studio where she had displayed all her photographic work.
Her mother, Laura Handlin, told the channel that she first noticed her daughter’s passion in photography while they were out shopping and she had given her a camera to take pictures.
“They pictures were really interesting, complex and layered. We just looked at it and thought, huh! maybe there’s something going on there,” said the father.
Handlin took the pictures while she was still in high school and she continued taking pictures from there.
She showed her work to some professional photographers and that’s when it was confirmed that she was gifted.
Her parents admitted that it wasn’t an easy journey to get the daughter where she is today, they had to put in a lot of work to help her with her early years in school.
They advocated for her to be included in general education classes and they had to support her with therapy and occasional tutoring.
At home, they had to spend four hours helping her with homework and preparing for tests everyday except on Fridays, and they spent eight hours on her school work on weekends.
“It was excruciating, it takes endurance,” her mother said.
Her parents said they didn’t anticipate that she would go this far with her studies, their aim was to get her through high school.
With her new qualification, Handlin said she hopes to get a job as a photographer and take pictures of President Joe Biden and his wife.
sinenhlanhla.masilela@iol.co.za
IOL News
Sun, 19 May 2024 16:30:52 GMTSinenhlanhla Masilela
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