Autism Goes To College
Autism Goes To College
EPISODE 24: Tony has landed. He's happy at St. Mary's - what finally worked: steady routines and campus support
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If you've been following Tony's college path, this episode will be a satisfying listen.
In short: He was admitted to St. Mary's College in Moraga, CA. and it feels good. He switched majors from Business to Econ. He's got an apartment. He cooks. Well, sometimes. He admits there might be a GrubHub addiction starting, due to a student discount. But mostly he has a lot to say about the accommodations at St. Mary's which have been great for him. So good that he wanted to bring Julie Scaff, Director of Student Disability Services on the podcast with him to talk about the peer student success mentors, internship opportunities and other supports the school offers to students on the spectrum, and others with learning differences. Hear how Tony navigated his way to the right college after a couple of false starts.
Now that I'm genuinely enjoying my social life at Hamilton, I'm more incentivized to actually be social.
SPEAKER_00Having autism isn't something that should prevent people from having a successful college experience.
SPEAKER_01It takes work, join clubs, find groups, find your people, find ways to fit in, see a peer mentor, see somebody who can help you get involved on campus.
SPEAKER_04There were a lot of black children on the spectrum who were also deaf. She's not the first one.
SPEAKER_05I researched all of the majors and I eliminated the ones that sounded not interesting to me. So then I changed it to chemical engineering to work for chemistry. Then I took an environmental science class and I'm like, I think environmental issues are really important, and I'm really passionate about state sustainability and stuff. So then I changed it to finally environmental engineering.
SPEAKER_08Especially in a college town like Outdoor Dash. Like, just go out and get the food. It's good exercise.
SPEAKER_02Hey everyone! Thanks for joining us on this episode of Autism Goes to College, the podcast for students on the spectrum and for everyone who supports us. Navigating college is always a challenge, so here are the hacks, insights, and great ideas you've been looking for to make college work for you. We're a small group of self-advocates. We're all in college or recently graduated, and you can do this too.
SPEAKER_08Hello, thanks for listening to our podcast, Autism Goes to College. I am Tony Yao, and if you've been here before, you already know part of my story. I started college in 2021 at the University of Oregon. Started college during COVID, didn't like the weather in Oregon, and I decided to leave. Spent a couple semesters at a community college closer to my home in Northern California, and I am now a sophomore at St. Mary's College in California. It's been a good move for me, and we'll talk about that. I even brought a guest who's part of the support services at St. Mary's. But first, I'm here with Catherine O'Brien, the host of the podcast Autism Goes to College, and I'm going to hand it over to her.
SPEAKER_07Hey everyone. Happy to be here with Tony and Julie Scaff, who's the Assistant Vice Provost for Student Support Services and Director of Student Disability Services at St. Mary's. I'm Catherine O'Brien and I have just started working on my PhD in special education at University of California Riverside. I started my college career at Bowdoin in Maine, which was a wonderful experience for me. After working for a few years, I went back for a master's degree at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. There, I focused on science teaching with an equity focus in urban schools. Most recently, I spent five years teaching at Milestone Day School, where I also led the technology committee and coordinated LGBTQ plus inclusion. Then, last fall, my own life experiences as a student on the spectrum and my teaching experiences led me to apply for the program I am in now, which will focus on autistic adolescence with a goal of improving outcomes in our transitions to adulthood, including both to college and to the many other paths we take in life. Before we jump into the conversation with Tony and Julie Scaff, a little bit about this podcast and our project. Autism Goes to College began as a documentary film, following five college students on the spectrum as they navigated college life. Eric Lynn Thorst directed the film, and it premiered at the Newport Beach Film Festival in 2019. And was also selected to screen at South by Southwest EDU in 2020, which of course happened online. At the end of this episode, I'll give you some details about where you can see the film today. And it's all at our website, autismgoes to college.org. So, with screenings limited since the pandemic began, the team wanted to open up the conversation and created this podcast. The first five episodes featured the stars of the film talking in more depth about their college experiences and what they are up to now. And since then, we've talked to students on the spectrum all over the map, sharing all kinds of experiences, working towards degrees and certificates around the country, plus a college counselor, parent perspectives, and admissions officers. Every month we drop a new episode. Here's what's also new there's a resource center on our website with dozens of outtakes of important stuff that didn't quite make it into the film, all of the podcast episodes, and blogs from experts and from student advisors from the film. Fun fact this project was recognized as the best of the internet in 2022 by the Webby Awards Anthem Awards, winning gold for diversity, equity, and inclusion. And we keep making it better. This podcast is here for us to share and open up the conversation and include more insights from self-advocates on the spectrum. Same with the Resource Center. So reach out if you'd like to get involved or have ideas for us. Let us know what would make it more meaningful and valuable, or what you'd like to contribute. And thanks for listening. We do hope to hear from you. Tony, Julie, welcome to the program. Thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_08Yep. Happy to be back.
SPEAKER_07So, Tony, you're in your second year of college and you're now at St. Mary's College in Moraga, California, going into the final weeks of your first year there. Uh St. Mary's was really high on your original college list for those of you uh that listened to Tony's original episode. But you ended up, like you said, starting at U of O. How did you wind up at St. Mary's? Last time the podcast had you on, you were at Foothill Community College, right?
SPEAKER_08Correct, that is correct. So I decided to go to St. Mary's primarily because it's one of it was one of the schools that took my high school grades. Took my high school grades as part because I never completed my original semester quarter at Oregon. So I had no college sort of college data to go off of. Especially just in my case, accommodating my sort of a little awkward case.
SPEAKER_07I see. So it felt like there was a path into a four-year college for you at St. Mary's. Can you talk more about what it was like reapplying? Did you uh use your original admissions file? How did that go for you?
SPEAKER_08The admissions process was quite was quite easy, uh, considering I was already in the system and bit have been was accepted already. So it was a matter of just not even reopening the file, more of just going through the file and almost sort of just like going through it again, like, okay, nothing's changed really, and we're good. Yeah. And so I was accepted there.
SPEAKER_07And it sounds like you already knew St. Mary's and had expectations that you would like it. Has it turned out as you expected?
SPEAKER_08It's turned out mostly as I expected, if not a little better. A little better in terms of my professors. I didn't know how most of the professors would be, because you never know at these at any college, really. But all my professors so far have been really, really accommodating so far in terms of listening to accommodations, giving me the support that I need.
SPEAKER_07What sort of accommodations and supports have the professors provided?
SPEAKER_08So most of my accommodations are relatively straightforward. So I get the time on a test plus half of the time it takes to complete the test on most exams. Uh recently I fractured my hand. Recently I fractured my hand. Julie does this, so I've been sending her emails saying, hey, I need to uh I need to stay at home. I'm currently at home in Mountain View, California right now, just kind of healing from that that injury. It was the injury I got it just before spring break. So that has that's been a little rough. When I when I get back, we'll see what happens. Um I would like to pass it over to Julie. Would you like to talk about uh what accommodations I could be having if I were to have, let's say, an injured hand?
SPEAKER_06Well, right, like Tony said, he injured his hand. Um, he let us know he's not able to type and asked for support with taking notes in class and then also having some time off as he heals and goes to doctor's appointments. So, in addition to his existing accommodations, we're gonna add a few more. We've added an attendance accommodation so that he won't be marked off for not being in class. Uh, St. Mary's is a very small school, and um, you know, at larger schools maybe they don't take attendance or professors don't know if you're there or not, but at St. Mary's, you know, the class size is small and the professors most of them take attendance. Tony, do all of yours take attendance? All of mine so far have taken attendance. So we'll send them a note and let them know that Tony should be excused. Um, and then in addition, we're working on um providing some note-taking support. Um, usually we use assistive technology for that, so we'll be working with Tony on that when he comes back.
SPEAKER_07Sounds good. Tell me a little bit more about your classes, Tony. Have you stuck to the same majors as when last we talked to you? I knew you were thinking about business.
SPEAKER_08Yes, I have actually changed my major from sort of business administration. So there's the this is school of business in St. Mary's, and I've changed from business to economics.
SPEAKER_07Economics? I see. And what classes do you take?
SPEAKER_08Well, I've so far I've been taking sort of like the intro, macro, and microeconomics courses at St. Mary's and data management so far. So like working with Microsoft Excel.
SPEAKER_07What caused you to change from business to economics? I think of them as related but different fields.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, it was just more of like going through. I took a couple business my first semester, I took one or two business classes in the strictly business administration field and some in the economics field because they they intersect quite a bit. So a lot of the intro classes are covering similar ground. I realized that economics was just more for me. The topics we covered, what you can go into in the workforce, that's what that's what more of what I want to do. I think economics is a little harder just because there's a lot more soft skills that, or there's a considerable amount of soft skills that you need.
SPEAKER_07Could you give an example of some of those soft skills you think you're learning in econ?
SPEAKER_08I think definitely learning cooperation amongst uh peers. My professor Batista, he does this thing where he doesn't have like sit-down exams, he gives out order like problem sets, and you're encouraged, and the problem sets are to the point where it's difficult to complete it by yourself. And so you're encouraged to go to your peers, and you can almost kind of brainstorm. You can't copy the same answers, obviously. You have to line your own train of thought, but you can get help from your peers, and you know, you're encouraged to work together. And I think that's actually quite that helped me learn the information a lot better than just like cramming for a test, in my opinion.
SPEAKER_07So you you mentioned breaking your hand, and I'm sorry to hear about that, and some new accommodations that will be in place to support you when you get back on campus. But if we roll back the tape, what were your initial accommodations?
SPEAKER_08It was mostly assistive note-taking software already. So we use a program called Otter, Otter.ai, and it does a pretty good job of you'd actually record the professor's lecture and it gives you a transcript. And then I have the time and a half on tests. Those are the two like big accommodations that I have.
SPEAKER_07And Julie, could you chime in and talk a little bit about the types of accommodations you offer to students on the spectrum in general?
SPEAKER_06Sure, yeah. So the two main really the testing accommodations is one of the more common accommodations. So, like Tony said, that could be time and a half or double time. We work with the student to see what's appropriate there. We also do reduced distraction testing, which is sort of built in. So any student who uses more time, they actually come over to our office and we have a testing center, and they're able to take tests over in our office. So a lot of students on the autism spectrum prefer that. And then within our testing center, we have private rooms, and so some students can go into a single, you know, standalone room and take their test. So there's no distraction, no people around. They can get up, walk around a little bit, move while they're taking their test. So that's very common. The note-taking support, like Tony talked about, we use a lot of assistive technology now for that. With students on the spectrum, a lot of times we will also explore housing accommodations. And so at St. Mary's, uh, freshmen are required to live on campus. And so a couple things with that. One, there is a process to be exempted from living on campus. So some of our students on the spectrum do opt to submit an exception to see if they can remain at home. We usually would approve those. But if a student does want to try living on campus, maybe something like a single room would be more comfortable or they feel like that they need that space to go back and decompress and just have real, you know, complete privacy. So we'll work with students on that too to find an appropriate housing placement for them. We do books in audio format. So a lot of students, if it's hard to have the attention span or whatever, to sit down and read a book. We will we have an assistive technology coordinator, and so she'll work with the publishers to transfer that book into audio format. And we use Kurzwiles so students can listen to the book, but it's also a very interactive program where you can still highlight and make notes, but you're doing it electronically. A lot of students use that.
SPEAKER_07Tony, I think you have a coach, perhaps an academic success coach. Could you say a little bit more about that and how you connected with a coach?
SPEAKER_08Yeah, so having uh Emily, she's a grad student, I believe, and she has been assigned to a couple of couple people, namely myself, as as a way to sort of as like a personal check-in. Like, how are you doing at St. Mary's? Uh, how are your assignments going? Do you need any help in any areas at all? And I think just having that extra layer of security is very, very beneficial to me, to my especially the first semester. The second semester I haven't seen her that much, so I'll probably drop in and say hi. First semester, we checked in a lot more though.
SPEAKER_07How frequent are those check-ins? Uh, is it more of a warm support or more of a firmly accountable check-in?
SPEAKER_08It's it's about it's about as firm as you want it to be. If you want to go stick every week, I want to go check in with with the student success coach, you can do that. You can absolutely do that. But there are some times where I'm like, I can't check in right now. I I've got too much too much stuff to do, so I can like just not show.
SPEAKER_07What might a check-in with Emily consist of? What are the things you guys do together?
SPEAKER_08It's mostly just like we sit down occasionally by like a computer or something, we she'll ask a couple questions and and like sometimes we even do like grade checks or something like that.
SPEAKER_07What about music? I know you really loved band at Oregon and you were continuing to play. How is that going at St. Mary's?
SPEAKER_08It's definitely different. It's it's we're a waste, we're a much smaller school coming from I I am a big proponent of music education and having music in people's lives. Um but for me it's it's it's it's a change, and I'm I'm learning to adjust to it.
SPEAKER_07Are you in a band at St. Mary's like you were at U of O?
SPEAKER_08I'm currently in their jazz band, and I was in their concert ensemble, which is like a small classical ensemble, which I'm not currently part of since uh class load is gonna be getting a little hectic. So learning to balance that, and I'm also part of the sports band, the pep band at St. Mary's. We recently went to NCAA tournament, so that was really fun going to Albany, and then the band actually the band actually took a trip by train to New York City itself. Having that experience and doing all the games, and this is all this is all paid by NCAA.
SPEAKER_07How did Saint Mary's do in the NCAA tournament, if I may ask?
SPEAKER_08Uh so we won against the Virginia Commonwealth. Everyone expected us to lose for some reason. So when we won, we we we kind of broke everyone's bracket, and then we slammed straight into Yukon, and our one of our stars actually injured his back. He's coming back next year. He's coming back next year, actually, so that'll that'll be good.
SPEAKER_07Had you been a basketball fan before this experience, or uh was this new?
SPEAKER_08I was more of a casual watcher. You know, I watch the Warriors every once in a while on TV, but nothing, not like NCAA. I actually like NCAA a little more. Just because an NBA everyone is at a certain skill level that there's just like I don't know. You don't get that skill, that the skill disparity in seeing like actual underdogs, in my opinion. I don't know. I may get lit on fire from basketball games for that.
SPEAKER_07So where are you living right now? Did you live on campus this year? Or I know you're home with the broken hand, but if you weren't, where would you be?
SPEAKER_08I would be at an apartment in well, so there's Baraga is like on this kind of hill, and then down below that is a town called Lafayette. And that is where I where I live. So I live just like down the hill in a nice little apartment.
SPEAKER_07And in your nice little apartment, do you have roommates? Are you flying solo?
SPEAKER_08I it's it's a little bit of a weird situation. Well, not weird, but it's just so a somewhat unique situation. I live with my mom who comes over like Thursdays and Fridays and then drives me home on Friday. So I I'm 90% of the time I'm living by myself. So I'll come up visit like Thursday, Thursday night, drive me home Friday after my last class, and then I have the weekends uh at home.
SPEAKER_07So it's it's a form of supported independence with your mom. Do you cook for yourself in your apartment?
SPEAKER_08Yes, I do. Yes, I cook for myself. Usually I cook like a lot of like fried rice, rice dishes. I use I've been getting these like packets of Irish stew recently, which are quite quite good. Like you just like put it in a pot. It's all pre-cooked, and you just put it in the pot and you heat it up. So that's good. And I get obviously I get takeout.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, I know you mentioned not to door dash everything in a previous episode. Are you continuing to stick to that advice with a good level of self-discipline?
SPEAKER_08There's actually I've been doing it more solely because St. Mary's as a deal as a corporate deal with Grubhub. You get f you get free delivery on Grubhub. So I actually been using it a lot more.
SPEAKER_07What's the social scene like at St. Mary's? Do you feel comfortable in it?
SPEAKER_08I feel pr I feel pretty comfortable in it. It's there's there's there's some dynamics that it's not I'll I'll just be out up front and say like it's not as ethnically diverse. It's it's a little bit of a culture shock from like Eugene, where you know people are coming from everywhere. Or you yeah, people are coming from like everywhere, everywhere to go to UO, and it's all and it's a larger campus to boot.
SPEAKER_07So what about uh your summer plan? Uh will you be working or doing an internship? And has there been some help for you in getting those opportunities lined up?
SPEAKER_08So I've actually applied, so we have a career psychology and career center. We have very very nice career center where I've actually applied to I think four internships already. And one of them is a one of them which I'm really looking at is the we use an app called Handshake, and so you kind of just do your resume and fill it out, which I got a lot of help from the Halton Career Center and just making a resume because I have no idea how to make I still have no idea how to make one. But having that template just be like, okay, here's what you put down and what experience you have, and they're very accommodating in terms of how navigating first timers did the process, and I have applied to one that is I think sponsored by the school where you work with Concha Costa County. So I'm I'm really vying for that one.
SPEAKER_07Julie, can you talk a little bit about how SDS supports uh students in their uh career readiness, internships, and all that stuff?
SPEAKER_06Sure, sure. So one of the programs and part of the uh coach where the coaching falls under is we have a program called the Connect program, and it is for any student who on the autism spectrum is automatically a part of it and can opt in and out of different. Parts as they'd like to. But one component is career support. And so Emily, who we referred to earlier, academic coach, academic success coach, she does try to work with students to see when they're interested in getting career experience, what fields they want to go into, can also provide support. But one of the things we do is we offer on-campus paid internships. And so our autistic students can work with her on those. We go out to the different departments to see what they might be interested in and try to line up a paid job where the student will be working on campus. And so by doing that, just helping students get work experience to put on a resume and then learn all the things that come along with working. Learning to work for a supervisor, working with coworkers, learning skills. Once we connect the student with the job, we really step out. And so the student is independently working with the supervisor. So we do do that. The career center that Tony was talking about, we actually are in the same wing. And so that has been a really nice inadvertent connection is that students who come into SDS are also coming into the career center. And so we do a lot of connection with the career center, training with the career center. We've done specific training with them on working with neurodiverse students. And so Emily can help with resumes, but also we could just walk them down the hall to one of the other career staff for support there. So that's sort of our main component right now. But then we've also really tried hard to learn about what other resources are out there nationwide. We're in the pilot program for a program called Mentra. It's been started by a couple young people and has really taken off. And their concept is to create a portal where students will apply through the portal, and it's kind of a non-traditional, not a typical resume, but asks you a lot of questions about your experience, but also like what kind of environment do you want to be in? Do you want to work with other people? Do you want to talk to people or not talk to people? And then they also go out and get companies to come into the portal to look at the candidates. So kind of a reverse, I guess you call that reverse interviewing or something where the candidates are in and then the companies are coming in to see who's there and who would be a good match. Our school's pretty small, so we'd right now I think we have four students in the portal. But looking forward to seeing if that pans out for students in terms of employment and just having other options for them.
SPEAKER_07That's great. And Julie, thank you so much.
SPEAKER_06Sure. Thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_07So, Tony, hopefully we'll get to hear from you again as you continue on your path.
SPEAKER_08Thank you for having me back.
SPEAKER_07So that is our show for today. Thank you so much for listening, for following us on Instagram and Facebook. And thank you especially for adding your reviews on Apple Podcast. Our show is very specifically for students on the spectrum navigating college. And we appreciate your appreciation for Autism Goes to College. Now, as promised from the top, here are the ways to see the film. The documentary film Autism Goes to College is currently available through many channels, but the easiest way to see it today is to rent it on Vimeo On Demand, which you can access from your Apple TV or most other smart TVs by going to the Vimeo On Demand app. You can find a link on our website at www.autismgoes to college.org. The film is also available for educational use and for live and hybrid screening events. All the relevant info and links can be found on our website. Don't forget, please follow us on Instagram to stay current and consider joining our vibrant community on Facebook. Thank you for listening.
SPEAKER_02Hey, thanks for listening to Autism Goes to College. We'd love to hear from you about what you'd like to hear more about. You can find us on Instagram and Twitter at Autism Goes to College. Hit us up with your thoughts. Tell us what's going on in your campus and in your college life. To see the documentary film or set up a screening, check us out at our website at AutismGoesTocollege.org.