For most high school graduates bound for college, the prospect of moving out and living on their own can create a good deal of apprehension. For Nick Hlifka, however, the usual jitters were compounded by the fact that he is legally blind.

Last June, Nick Hlifka received a standing ovation for his valedictorian address during Sherman Central School’s graduation ceremonies. After that moment, he was eager to move on to new experiences in his case, living and studying at Jamestown Community College.

It would be his first experience living on his own and this made him both nervous and eager. “The greatest challenge was being able to live on my own and prove to others and to myself that I could do it,” Hlifka said.

Hlifka did that and more. Not only did he successfully integrate into dorm life and learn to navigate the campus, but he earned a 4.0 grade point average. “It’s been an awesome semester,” Hlifka said. “It was a little tough at the beginning, but I assimilated well into college life.”

Living on his own forced him to improve his problem solving abilities, Hlifka said. “When you are blind, you don’t really realize how much of a fallback you have had in your family,” he said. “Now, nobody is there. If I am walking outside and if turn down the wrong sidewalk, I’ve got to figure out how to get back.”

Still, Hlifka said, he soon learned how to navigate his way around the JCC campus. But there were other challenges, such as sharing living spaces with people he had only just met.

The dormitories at JCC are not the traditional two-to-a-room type. Rather they consist of four small bedrooms sharing a bathroom and living area. Hlifka said it was strange at first. “I wanted to tell them not to move anything,” Hlifka said. “But we had some good conversations at the beginning. I’m a people-person. They offered to help if I needed anything.’

Hlifka said he was well prepared by his high school education at Sherman, noting that he took many college level courses and the teachers treated them as such. “It wasn’t as big an adjustment for me as it is for many students, he said. “Part of my struggle in the beginning was trying to assimilate into a new way of handling the bigger work load.”

Hlifka said he got worried when his first grade in Calculus III came back as a D minus. He launched himself into his coursework ended up with A’s in his four classes – Calculus III, Linear Algebra, Public Speaking, and Introduction to Computer Programming.

Still, there were some things that his education at Sherman could not teach him. “Sherman is a very small school,” he said. “Anyone going to college is going to say, ‘wow, the world is a lot bigger than it seems.”

Hlifka said the greatest challenge was in meeting new people and making new friends. “At Sherman, you’ve been in the same class since kindergarten. Suddenly, you’re out of that. You have to begin building a new friends group. But when you’re blind, you can’t just say, ‘hey, I’m going to go sit by that person over there.’ It’s a big adjustment.”

Attending JCC allowed him to broaden his experience of people, Hlifka said. “From the very small size of Sherman to the bigger size of JCC, I’ve met a lot of people with different backgrounds,” he said.

Hlifka said JCC was a good choice for his first time on his own. Because of its size, Sherman had a family-type atmosphere, Hlifka said. JCC was big enough to challenge him to be more independent, but still allowed him to know all of his professors personally, he said.

Now Hlifka is planning to go even further. He has decided to change his major from “Math and Science” to “Communications in Psychology.” He will finish out this year at JCC, but next September, he will transfer to Houghton College in Houghton, N.Y.

Hlifka said he hopes to become involved in Christian ministry as his life’s work, either as a pastor or as a counselor. He has been active in Christian activities at JCC including the outreach group, Impact At JCC.

Hlifka credits his parents for encouraging him to become more and more independent. His father, Gene, said they were very proud of Nick and his accomplishments. “It’s been a joy watching him grow, helping him to become a full-fledged adult,” he said. “We felt Jamestown was a perfect choice not so far away that we could be there if there was a problem, but basically he’s own his own.”

However, it is not always easy, Gene said. “All his life, I’ve been concerned with other people taking advantage of Nick because he can’t see. At Sherman, the teachers and students looked out for him,” he said. “When I saw him leaving the home environment for college, it caused a new awakening to that thought process.”

Still, Nick and his parents feel sure he is going in the right direction. As Nick put it: “It’s all been very fast and very amazing. … I’m excited to see where it goes.”