Eyes on the prize: Optician overcomes reading disability to earn her degree

Eyes on the prize: Optician overcomes reading disability to earn her degree

Monday, December 15, 2025

Media Contact: Aaron Campbell | OSU-Tulsa Communications Coordinator | 918-594-8046 | [email protected]

Kelly Pettigrew, one of this year's graduates from the College of Professional Studies, was so excited to earn her bachelor's degree in health care administration from Oklahoma State University that she flew out from Alabama to participate in the spring graduation ceremony in Stillwater.

"I earned this moment to be able to celebrate with my classmates and family, a moment that has been a long time coming," she said. "I can't tell you the feeling I got seeing my son celebrate with me on my special day."

Although she's held a career as a licensed optician for nearly 40 years, Pettigrew knew she needed to go beyond her associate degree in opticianry to better meet her patients' needs, so she set herself on the pathway to a master's degree in Blind/Low Vision Therapy.

However, there was one big obstacle in her path.

"School has always been a struggle for me. I am dyslexic, making written language a challenge for me daily," she said. "I have always thought that if school had been easier, I would have been an orthopedic surgeon."

When looking for her best option to pursue a bachelor's degree, OSU's online health care administration degree stood out to her for two reasons. According to Pettigrew, it made the best use of her existing college credits - but OSU's Student Accessibility Services, offered both on campus and online, was the game changer.

"Back in the late '80s, there was nothing like this to help people like me succeed with learning disabilities," she said. "If you were to look at my transcript from over the years, where I kept trying to complete a college degree, you would think you were looking at the wrong person when you compare it to my final transcript from OSU."

The ability to access the Read&Write literacy support tool, a computer program that can read text out loud and check for grammar mistakes, gave Pettigrew the support she needed to keep up with her classmates. The difference was night and day.

"I went to take a math exam at a local college, where the Read&Write program was supposed to be ready for me. When I arrived, I found out it was not," she said. "I tried anyways - what a mistake! I failed the exam, getting a 46 out of 100. My professor was gracious enough to let me take my exams over, this time with the Read&Write program available. I took all three of my finals back-to-back and scored an 'A' on all of them."

With this assistance, Pettigrew went from being a struggling student to taking 21 credit hours a semester and graduating with a 3.6 GPA - and a 4.0 so far in her master's degree. That's part of why it was important to her to make the trip to Stillwater to walk the graduation stage, celebrating with her family as she became the second sibling to get a bachelor's degree.

In the wake of her achievement, Pettigrew has some advice for anyone who will listen.

"I hope you will take away from this one thing," she said. "No matter what obstacles you may have - dream big. Shoot for the stars. Never stop."