OCEANSIDE -- One MiraCosta student got the best glimpse of her future only after she lost her sight.

Susan Pelbath, 52, is set to graduate Friday with an associate's degree in sociology and a 4.0 grade-point average. She went back to school in January 2007 after a degenerative retinal disease forced her out of her job as a teacher's aide with the Oceanside Unified School District.

"As I lost my sight, I lost the ability to do so many things," Pelbath said. "I didn't know how to be taught."

To learn how to learn, the mother of six grown children enrolled in the Davidson Program for Independence, a school in Los Angeles that teaches its blind students how to read Braille, use specially-designed computer programs, and navigate the world with the help of a seeing eye dog.

After getting her bearings, Pelbath enrolled at MiraCosta. Three years later, she is one of 11 recipients of the college's Medal of Honor, an award given to students nominated by professors. She has already begun taking classes at Cal State San Marcos, where she is enrolled for next semester.

The experience of reinventing herself, and doing it without being able to see, has rejuvenated the Oceanside resident.

"I swear, I'm 10 years younger than I was four years ago," she said, scratching behind the ears of Izzy, her 9-year-old seeing-eye dog who has been a constant companion at MiraCosta.

Pelbath is one of about 350 students, out of 972 total graduates, expected to participate in MiraCosta College's commencement ceremony to start at 5 p.m. Friday in front of the administration building on the Oceanside campus.

This year, Dr. Carmen Ruiz, an Oklahoma colorectal surgeon who went from MiraCosta to Harvard Medical School, will deliver the commencement address.

Pelbath said she intends to major in human development rehabilitation counseling, a curriculum she hopes will prepare her for a job as a rehab counselor, working with disabled students to navigate college campuses.

She said MiraCosta's rehab counselors helped her succeed, arranging tests with special test readers and scribes to help her answer questions that she can not see. Counselors also helped her obtain textbooks in computer document form that can be read to her by specially-designed software. The same program also helps her do research on the Internet and use e-mail, the lingua franca of any college campus.

"I've been able to do what everybody else does, just in different ways and slower," she said.

Contact staff writer Paul Sisson at 760-901-4087.