College students with diabetes experience the difficult transition from having parents help monitor diabetes at home to handling it alone at school.

“I’ve had type one since I was five years old,” SMU alumna Sarah Bornstein said. “I’ve had it for eighteen years now… One of the struggles is that it’s just always there. You don’t get a break from it.”

The College Diabetes Network at SMU received funding in the spring of 2019, and it will launch within the next year. Students with diabetes also receive support from local chapters of JDRF, Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. These organizations offer support for students learning to handle diabetes on their own.

“JDRF hosts an event called ‘Off To College Conversation,’” Tanya Conovaloff, the Outreach Manager at JDRF Dallas, said. “We try to give some guidelines and some tips about what this transition is going to look like and how to make sure that the care is still at the upmost that it can be.”

According to the American Diabetes Association, 1.25 million people have type one diabetes. Students making the transition from high school to college need additional support taking care of diabetes.

“Through the support of organizations like JDRF and different doctors that I’ve had, it became really manageable and really helped me shape who I am as a person and who I am going forward,” SMU Alumnus Travis Roberts said.