ScholarB060811D Tess Colwell/The Gazette Walt Whitman High School graduate Emma Liu, 18, unicycles Monday at her home in Bethesda Monday. Liu is legally blind and received $10,0000 scholarship from the Jewish Guild for the Blind that she will use at Ithaca College in New York in the fall. “Being disabled doesn’t mean you can’t do something,” Liu said. “It just means you have to find another way to do it.”

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ScholarB060811W Tess Colwell/The Gazette Emma Liu, 18, of Bethesda is legally blind and received a $10,000 scholarship from the Jewish Guild for the Blind, which she will put toward her education at Ithaca College in New York State. “I got into college,” Liu said. “I’m going off to live my own life. And I think it’s great that there are organizations like the Jewish Guild that are out there and recognize the struggles that I’ve been through and recognize the hard work that I put in just to go to school.”
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ScholarB060811A Tess Colwell/The Gazette Emma Liu, 18, of Bethesda is legally blind and received a $10,000 scholarship from the Jewish Guild for the Blind, which she will put toward her education at Ithaca College in New York State. “I got into college,” Liu said. “I’m going off to live my own life. And I think it’s great that there are organizations like the Jewish Guild that are out there and recognize the struggles that I’ve been through and recognize the hard work that I put in just to go to school.”
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ScholarB060811 Tess Colwell/The Gazette Emma Liu, 18, a senior at Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, received a $10,000 scholarship from the Jewish Guild for the Blind, which she will put toward her education at Ithaca College in New York State. Liu has Stargardt’s Disease, an inherited condition that causes gradual degeneration in the middle of the retina. People with Stargardt’s tend to lose central vision. Liu, who found out about her disability in the eighth grade, cannot drive and has difficulty reading.
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ScholarB060811B Tess Colwell/The Gazette Emma Liu, 18, of Bethesda is legally blind and received a $10,000 scholarship from the Jewish Guild for the Blind, which she will put toward her education at Ithaca College in New York State. She is photographed with her beagle Annie at her home on Monday. “I got into college,” Liu said. “I’m going off to live my own life. And I think it’s great that there are organizations like the Jewish Guild that are out there and recognize the struggles that I’ve been through and recognize the hard work that I put in just to go to school.”

ScholarB060811D Tess Colwell/The Gazette Walt Whitman High School graduate Emma Liu, 18, unicycles Monday at her home in Bethesda Monday. Liu is legally blind and received $10,0000 scholarship from the Jewish Guild for the Blind that she will use at Ithaca College in New York in the fall. “Being disabled doesn’t mean you can’t do something,” Liu said. “It just means you have to find another way to do it.”

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Emma Liu is a kayaker. A rock climber. A unicyclist.

And legally blind.

“Being disabled doesn’t mean you can’t do something,” Liu said. “It just means you have to find another way to do it.”

Liu, a senior at Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, received a $10,000 scholarship from the Jewish Guild for the Blind, which she will put toward her education at Ithaca College in New York State.

Liu, 18, has Stargardt Disease, an inherited condition that causes gradual degeneration in the middle of the retina. People with Stargardt’s tend to lose central vision. Liu, who found out about her disability in the eighth grade, cannot drive and has difficulty reading.

“I have to find different ways of learning stuff because a lot of learning is visual, and clearly that’s not the easiest thing for me to do,” Liu said. “I’ve gotten really good at listening and taking a lot of notes.”

She will use the scholarship to pay for technologies that make learning a bit easier. Liu is looking into software that takes a photo of a printed page and reformats it so a computer can read it aloud. Now, Liu said she uses different magnifying devices and large-print text books to read. Her Kindle, a wireless reading device, reads to her, too, which speeds up the learning process.

Starting college will give Liu the opportunity to decide when to tell others about her disability on her own terms, she said.

“I don’t really look like I’m visually impaired,” she said. “So sometimes it’s hard for people to understand why I can’t read the menu or whatever it is. I think it’s important for people to know that just because you’re disabled doesn’t mean you’re any less capable of anything.”

Liu said she plans to study physical therapy. She even said she’s looking into various types of technology that will make a required cadaver dissection possible.

“I got into college,” Liu said. “I’m going off to live my own life. And I think it’s great that there are organizations like the Jewish Guild that are out there and recognize the struggles that I’ve been through and recognize the hard work that I put in just to go to school.”

abryant@gazette.net