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For students who can't see their professors or read traditional textbooks, getting ready for college is about more than brushing up on high school skills or furnishing a dorm room.

"When you're a college student who is visually impaired you have to work two to three times as hard as other people," said Jewish Guild for the Blind Instructor Myra Schiff.

For almost two decades, the Jewish Guild for the Blind on Manhattan's Upper West Side has had summer classes for visually impaired students who are heading off to college in the fall.

"At this point, I am not prepared. I am getting an idea of what it could be like, being here at the Jewish Guild. So this is giving me an idea of what I would need to do, to prepare myself for college, which I should start in August," said student Dale Leyne.

"Since I am used to being around the disabled, to be around the sighted-world in an educational sense, it's going to be kind of difficult because I am used to being around my kind or someone who is even worse off than me," said student Ricky Pizarro.

The students work on academic skills, like how to get the most out of a lecture, research a topic and write a term paper, but also about how to navigate the system once on campus.

"A lot of times there are issues in dealing with the disabilities office or working with readers or working with professors, some professors don't want students to record. And then we need to deal with how to help them to overcome these objections and issues so that they can become effective students," Schiff said.

"It's good that the teachers, a lot of them are visually impaired, so that gives you hope that you can aspire to do what they do. So it's like a confidence boost," Pizarro said.

The Guild also helps prepare students for how hard it's going to be in the fall.

"It still takes you a long time, more time, to do your reading. It takes you more time to take your notes, review your notes. It takes you more time to work with readers. A lot of times the professor will never realize how much effort that student put in to get that A or B," Schiff said.

Teachers at the Guild say when students are prepared for how tough it's going to be they are able to overcome those challenges and do well in college.