Blind mother of 5 graduates from college with honors alongside her guide dog

When a Tennessee mother of five received her college degree on May 9, she couldn’t see her family cheering in the audience – because she is completely blind.Even so, as Amanda Juetten, 47, crossed the stage to accept her degree – magna cum laude – from Tennessee Tech University, she was more certain than ever about her path forward.“I’m totally blind,” Juetten told Fox News Digital in an interview.“So I’ve got my guide dog by my side.”“The two guys I was sitting by told me to follow them — we were a team.

I’m concentrating on shaking all the hands and getting across the stage.I was thinking, ‘This isn’t the end.

It’s really the beginning of what’s next.’”Juetten, who recently became a grandmother, began her college journey nearly 30 years ago, but had to postpone her studies when she had a baby right out of high school — and immediately went to work to provide for her new family.She eventually returned to higher education, but in 2020, after years of progressive vision loss from a condition called retinitis pigmentosa, she found herself in the dark — literally.“I was left totally blind with no skills for blindness,” Juetten said.“Over the years, I had been taught a lot of skills for using my remaining vision, but not what to do with no vision at all.’”Determined to regain her independence, she enrolled in an eight-month program at the Colorado Center for the Blind.“I thought, ‘I know blind parents make their kids’ lunches.

I know blind parents go to PTA meetings.I can do this.

I just need to be around a bunch of other blind people,’” she recalled.“Blind people are not sitting in their basements waiting for the end.They’re out there living their lives, and I wanted to do that, too.”With her new skills and adaptive techniques — and a renewed sense of confidence — Juetten enrolled at Tennessee Tech in the fall of 2022, pursuing a professional studies degree with a concentration in orga...