[00:03] Debbie: Welcome to the Autism and Neurodiversity podcast.
[00:06] Jason: We’re here to bring you helpful information from leading experts and give you effective tools and support. I’m Jason Grygla, a licensed counselor and founder of Techie for Life, a specialized mentoring program for neurodiverse adults.
[00:19] Debbie: And I’m Debbie Grygla, a certified life coach. And maybe most importantly, we’re also parents to our own atypical Young Adults Friends.
Hello. Welcome. So we have Dr. Eric Enlich, who is a clinical psychologist and founder of Top College Consultants with us today, and he helps neurodiverse students nationwide transition to college. And he’s also on the Learning Differences Neurodiversity Committee of the Independent Educational Consultants Association, which is actually where we met him at one of their conferences on Zoom recently. And he’s also on the clinical advisory board of the Asperger autism Network. He also commandages a Facebook group, parents of College Bound Students with Learning Disabilities, ADHD, and ASD, and they have over 1400 members of that Facebook group. He is also a professional writer and national presenter, and he’s been interviewed by Forbes Magazine, Business Insider, college Express, College Confidential, and US. News and World Report. And we are just so delighted to have you on our podcast today. Thanks for coming on, Eric. Welcome.
[01:38] Eric: Thank you, Debbie. Jason, great to be here.
[01:41] Jason: We’d love to hear a little bit about how you got to this place. Did you always want to be a psychologist, and then how did you end up being focused on learning disabilities and neurodiversity in general?
[01:56] Eric: Sure. Well, I’ll try not to give you the short version of my life story. I mean, I did figure out that I was really interested in people in high school. I was thinking previously going into sciences, like astrophysics or something. But then I discovered at a summer science program, I was actually more interested in the students than in the science. So I ended up going into psychology also. I just wanted to be a writer, and I have been writing my whole life, too. And then I was a clinical psychologist for many years in various different capacities, including private practice, worked with a lot of folks on the spectrum. My son was diagnosed autistic at age two and a half in 1999. So my wife and I were really thrust into the autism world and ended up working with a lot of autistic clients as a therapist as well. And then many years later, we were sitting at another autism conference, and we both simultaneously realized that I’m on the spectrum as well. So I really became even more kind of focused on helping autistic clients. And in the process of my daughter applied to college, I kind of discovered the whole field of college admissions consulting and just fell in love with it. I love traveling to colleges. I love working with teens, helping them on their essays, and helping them kind of move on to a new chapter in their life. So being a college admissions consultant for neurodivergent students, really kind of brought together lots of my interests of the counseling piece, the writing piece, helping folks who are not neurotypical and just helping students who might otherwise be challenged to access higher education.
[03:46] Jason: That’s awesome. What were some of the signs or big factors that made you realize years and years later that, oh, my gosh, I’m on the spectrum as well?
[03:56] Eric: Well, we were listening to a keynote speaker who was Sarah Hendrix, who’s very accomplished, bright, funny, entertaining, articulate. She was talking about her own journey and how she discovered in her forties after writing several books on autism, that she herself was on the spectrum. And then it just sort of clicked, like, wow, here’s this professional who’s accomplished who knows all this stuff about autism. She didn’t figure it out until midlife. And it just gave us sort of a different vision of what autism could look like. Our main kind of image of it came from our son and his peers on the spectrum. But it’s a spectrum, and it can present differently different people. And then when I kind of went back through my life and looked at all the different challenges I’d had, it just became increasingly clear. And I ended up actually working with a couple of colleagues also on the spectrum and co writing a book on older autistic adults based on a survey of 150 adults nationwide. I mean, worldwide.
[05:00] Jason: Did you come up with any amazing insights as to what helped you survive being autistic growing up or transitioning into adulthood?
[05:10] Eric: That’s a great question. I mean, it probably would have been easier if I had known earlier on what the reason for some of my challenges were. One of the things we found in our study of 150 adults is that the vast majority were bullied in childhood. The vast majority didn’t discover until, you know, after age 40 that they were on spectrum. And the most common response was relief. So people tended to feel much better after they were diagnosed. I think one thing that helped me as a kid is I had a really good friend group, which is not always the case for autistic children, but I just lucked out. I had a really great group of friends, and so even though if I may not have fit into the cool kid group, it still really helped me during childhood. And then having what people call special interests, having real passions, has always been a real focus, and I think that’s something to be nurtured and encouraged, because that can turn into a career. So always having something that I was passionate about really helped me too.
[06:14] Debbie: It’s interesting when you mentioned feeling relieved when you realized and that adults felt that way in your book interviews, that was the same feeling I had when our son, when he was 13. When he was diagnosed, he was like, oh, I’m so sorry. And I was like, no, it helps me understand him now. And it just connected dots for me. And I remember just feeling, like, relieved, like, oh, now I get him. Get what’s going on.
[06:38] Eric: Yes, sometimes there are stages. The first stage is not always a positive one. Sometimes it’s shock. When our son was diagnosed, he was a toddler. Even though I was a psychologist, we didn’t know that much about autism. The things that we were told by the professionals weren’t terribly encouraging. There weren’t as many resources out there. My wife, in fact, founded a group of parents called Common Bonds to help parents connect with each other. And one professional even talked about maybe institutionalizing him. So it wasn’t exactly a positive message initially, but then as you learn more, as you learned about the possibilities, it can be very uplifting. And as you said, really, if nothing else, help make sense of everything. And lots of celebrities have recently been either coming out or getting diagnosed and talking about their stories in the media. And one thing that’s a pretty common thread is people say, finally, my life makes sense. Like, all the pieces fit together.
[07:42] Jason: Yeah, I really appreciate you sharing that. I know that’s personal all of our listeners. They want the vast information you have, and we’ll talk about that now. But the assessing and the college readiness and transition and accommodations, all those things are great. I think they really value and need the emotional processing. So you sharing that I think, means a lot because they’re going through the emotional process of everything, and that’s really helpful information as well.
[08:08] Eric: And I also feel like it helps me be patient with the students that I work with and understand why they might be challenged and that they may have social difficulties at school or feel like they don’t fit in. Yeah, encourage their dreams. Encourage them not to give up. Sometimes, unfortunately, they get negative messages from someone. It could be the school district, could be some random professional they interacted with who’s kind of lowering the bar or lowering their expectations. I have a student recently who the school she was in was encouraging her to not even take her high school diploma. I worked with her, and she actually ended up getting into the Berkeley College of Music. So I want students to dream and pursue their dreams. Right.
[09:00] Jason: So a lot of our parents are either preparing to or anyone that’s listening to our podcast, they’re either in high school or preparing for high school or preparing for college. Let’s start with high school. How should parents start with assessing college readiness and what can they do to prepare their kids for college or leaving the home or staying at home and going to a community college? What do you recommend? What are some of the questions you ask? How do you approach it? What suggestions do you have?
[09:30] Eric: Great question. I mean, I do hold talks on that subject. I can’t really compress it all into one answer. But it’s not a black or white thing that either you’re ready for college or you’re not. I mean, even neurotypical students who successfully go on to college and graduate college don’t necessarily have all of the skills mastered that you should. But one of the keys is to distinguish between being college capable and college ready. So if students are taking reasonably challenging courses in high school and getting pretty good grades, chances are they’re capable of college level material. If they’re taking honors courses, AP courses, getting A’s and B’s, they’re most likely going to be perfectly capable of handling the academic rigor of college. So they’re college capable. That doesn’t mean that they are college ready. Because readiness has more to do with being able to handle the independence. Being able to live away from your parents. Manage your time. Self advocate with professors. Live with the roommate. Remember to do your laundry. Remember to get up in the morning and not miss class and a whole bunch of other things. Skills that they may not be practicing in high school. And so I will go through with kids and their parents kind of from the beginning to the end of the day. Who’s responsible for this? Who’s helping you with this? You know, our kids getting themselves up in the morning, are they keeping track of their own assignments? Do they know how to do laundry? Can they manage money? Remember? Do they go to bed at a reasonable hour? Do they manage to control their use of electronics and social media or gaming so that they can have a decent balance and get their work done? If they’re doing all that stuff independently in high school, great. They’re on track. Again, I’m not saying that neurotypical kids necessarily have all these skills mastered, but if they can’t get themselves up in the morning for school, for example, that’s something they need to work on mastering while they’re still in high school so that when they go off to college and the parents aren’t there to shake them and get them out of bed, they’re ready to do that. So parents can start kind of dialing it back, start stepping back and start putting into place plans and strategies for kids to do more of these things on their own while they’re still in high school. And that’s the short answer.
[11:56] Debbie: And I love that distinction. And I can just hear a parent going, yeah, but what if they don’t? What if they fail? Don’t get out of bed. What if they need me to do it? And how do you dial it back?
[12:08] Eric: Yeah, well, it’s a process. You don’t have to just say, announce one day, okay, I’m never waking up again. You could start practicing during a safer time, like on a vacation or weekend, and make sure the kids have arm clocks that are effective for them, but also that they go to bed at a reserve. I’m not a huge fan of alarm clocks because to me that means you’re not getting enough sleep. And I understand it’s challenging because their circadian rhythms, they may like to stay up late and sleep late, but I would say it’s a gradual process. It’s not something that I would expect people to do overnight. Of course, in college a lot of kids opt to avoid early morning classes for that very reason. So they don’t have to get up before 89, 10, 11:00 in the morning. But that may or may not be possible, especially if you’re on a sports team and you have to get up early for practices. So you can’t totally rely on that solution in college.
[13:08] Jason: I love the distinction between capable and ready. And as an extension of that, we find that when students are ready to go out into the workplace, they have the hard skills that the job requires. But they get fired for their lack of soft skills, not being able to manage their life outside of the actual core tasks at the job. So leaving home and going to college and then going from college into a career, it’s the same issue. And the secondly, the shift from are they ready? It’s such a developmental piece more than a willingness piece or even an in the moment capable piece. It’s not that they won’t, it’s that they don’t or they can’t quite yet.
[13:53] Eric: I’m kind of keeping my eye on the ball too, in terms of the long term that I do want them to eventually transition to a career, not just get a college diploma and then move back home. I do want them to transition to the workplace. So I’m also looking for internships for them while they’re still in high school or programs where they can learn career skills before or during college and encourage them to get internships or jobs during college, encourage them to think about careers. So I’m kind of incorporating that into what I do as well. And often they have the opportunity to do interviews for college admissions. So there’s an opportunity to hone your interview skills that you’re going to need for the workplace also. So there are opportunities to kind of start building in these skills for the long term for the transition to career. I agree. The soft skills are typically where neurodiversion folks get tripped up and successfully staying at work. Fortunately, some employers are recognizing that and making changes to be more inclusive. So I like to see people meet in the middle. You can’t expect employers to change everything whether we would like them to or not. They probably won’t, but you can’t expect neurodivergent people to be neurotypical either. So maybe we can meet somewhere in the middle.
[15:23] Jason: I think when parents are focused on the performative milestone, if I can just get them to graduate high school somehow that will magically erase all of the lack of developmental skills and they’re afraid to back off and let them develop so that when they go to college, they can succeed. I think that’s a mistake I made as a parent as well. And I would love for parents to see their interaction and their parenting or their mentoring in terms of how do I help them develop, not how do I get them through high school, not how do I get them a college degree, but how do I get them prepared for a career. That’s a developmental approach versus a performative goal approach. I think it helps.
[16:07] Eric: And if you’re developmentally delayed, that means you arrive at the same milestones later. It doesn’t mean you’re not going to arrive at them ever. So maybe the college degree takes longer. Maybe you start college later. One thing that I see in most of the kids I work with is challenges with executive functioning. I’m sure you’re familiar with that. Difficulties with time management, organization planning, those parts of the brain that are largely impacted by the frontal lobe, which continues to develop and myelinate into the mid to late 20s. So if you’re thinking, oh, my kids can’t even remember this. My kid can’t even keep track of this. They’re never going to be good at a job or college or what have you. Just be reassured that they are still developing. And even in neurotypical kids, those things are still coming online well into your 20s. Which is why, of course, you can’t rent a rental car in many states until you’re about 26 or so because the companies recognize that the judgment and planning are not as good.
[17:19] Jason: There is some peace of mind to know that time is on your side. And that’s also kind of a heavy thing for parents thinking if they’ve always thought, well, once they’re 18, I can take a breath back, there’s no way.
[17:34] Eric: That’s also why I think many kids benefit from a gap year because it buys them another year of development. Their brain is going to be one year older. They’re going to be a little bit more capable in the area of executive function. They’re a little bit more mature a year later, and they have that whole year to work on those skills, whether it’s working in the workplace and developing interpersonal skills and customer service skills or whether it’s going to a college readiness program. And part of what I offer to families, I think, is helping open their eyes to things that they didn’t even know what was out there. Like college readiness programs, gap year programs that are specific for neurodivergent students, college autism support programs, executive function coaches in college. There’s all these opportunities and services and supports out there that not everyone even knows about and not everyone can afford to hire a consultant like me, which is why I put a lot of information out there for free on my website so that if somebody doesn’t, can’t or chooses not to hire a consultant, they can still get lots of information for free. Thank you.
[18:44] Jason: I appreciate you coming on and sharing too. That’s why we do this podcast as well.
[18:48] Debbie: And I want to say too, I’m just thinking about one of our sons that has some learning challenges and he’s actually very socially adept, but executive functioning challenges. And he had a year after high school of just kind of working and he would take like one or two fun classes at the college. And I was amazed at how much maturity and development he gained in that year where he was like being more independent. I wasn’t doing it, I wasn’t as involved. I really knocked off. And it is surprising, like even just one year can make a big difference in maturity and development. I don’t know. There’s a lot of development happens in that time period when they that’s great.
[19:32] Eric: And it sounds like he was taking courses at a pace that he could enjoy them and succeed at them, not where he was just worried about surviving and keeping his head above water.
[19:41] Jason: Right.
[19:42] Debbie: Yeah.
[19:42] Jason: We wanted it to be a positive experience his first semester or year at college, and we ensured that he wanted to go back to college.
[19:49] Debbie: Yeah, because he wasn’t actually thinking college. He didn’t want to. But now I think he is for sure planning on it. But he took like a mountain biking class, which you love and you photography type class and did really well with that. And it was a totally different experience for him in high school where it.
[20:04] Jason: Was like dredging through maybe not just a gap year, but a year of easing into it where it isn’t necessary to prove that they can do it at college with 15 credit hours and classes.
[20:18] Eric: Yeah, when kids go to community college first, that does sort of slow down the process because they can still stay at home, so they’re not making that leap of going to college level academics and living by themselves or living away from their parents in the same year that they’re breaking that up into two separate moves. But I also do encourage kids that to your point that it can be much more interesting in college. A lot of kids have had a negative experience in high school for a whole bunch of reasons. It might be socially, it might be that they were forced to take all these courses that they didn’t like. But in college, especially students on the spectrum who may have a very specific interest, that’s the time where they can really start to pursue that interest. Even more so in graduate school, to be honest. But if you love geology or anthropology or mathematics or cybersecurity, whatever it might be, you’re going to be able to take a whole bunch of classes in college. Whereas in high school, every single year, it’s another year of foreign language, another year of social studies, another year of english. It’s not like that so much in.
[21:24] Jason: College when parents are saying to themselves, what you need to get ready for the real world. You don’t just get to take the fun classes. I get the mistake. I love it when they can take enough classes that push them a little bit, but also ensures that the first semester away from home or at college is a positive one. It’s going to get a job. Our students get their first job and immediately my tendency as a parent is to say, OK, you get your first paycheck. We have to start saving and rules and we shut them down. But I actually want them to go out and blow that money on something really cool that they love, that they’ve never been able to buy for themselves, so that they like getting a paycheck. That’s more important than being really responsible with that first paycheck.
[22:11] Eric: Yeah, one of my students who’s focused on Drones incorporated some of that into his essay, that he really liked being able to work as a teenager and pay for his hobby himself and feel like, hey, this is something I earned. This isn’t just something my rich parents are giving me. And that really can be very satisfying for a student. Back to your point about being able to study things that you enjoy in college. Also there’s things outside the classroom in college, like clubs. You’re not only going to be able to take cool, interesting classes in college. I mean, I took a course in the search for intelligent life in the universe in college, which was not part of my major. I just thought it was really interesting topic. But you know, there might be a quidditch club, there might be an anime club. There’s going to be stuff you can find. You can find your people in college. It’s not like high school where there’s two or three big cliques and if you’re not in with the cool kids, you just feel like an outcast in college. There’s so much more, so many more clubs and opportunities. You can always find something that works for you.
[23:18] Jason: Reminds me, we’ve been trying to address something for high school kids with IEPs that we would love to see more IPS cover developmental experiential things, avocations, not just coursework accommodations. And I would love for an IP to say, have the school football team find a place for this young man to be a volunteer or have them be a part of a club where they’re underneath the wing of a mentor. Any thoughts on that? Any movement in that area? Because I think that would be so critical for success in college to change IEPs in high school.
[24:01] Eric: I love that idea. I mean, of course you still have to work within the framework of what the legal requirements are for the IEP and what the district is willing to do and all of that. But part of an IEP is a transition plan, and you’re supposed to be working on that years in advance of the student leaving high school. Unfortunately, the degree to which schools have transition meetings and come up with a complex, robust plan can really vary from one school to another. So some students have a very detailed plan. Sometimes parents are like, oh, I didn’t realize we were supposed to be doing that, or that the school was supposed to be doing that for us. It doesn’t always get done in a timely or thorough fashion, but yeah, I don’t see why that transition plan couldn’t incorporate some of the pieces you’re talking about to prepare the student for having even more great opportunities after they leave. Yes.
[25:01] Jason: I find most of the disability resource people in the district, most of them are there because they love the students and their patient and their kind. They want to actually give them what they need. Sometimes there’s a battle when it’s a bureaucrat that’s there to protect money in a school. But I think for the most part, they’re like, man, I would love I would love to give them something out of the box that that’s important for their transition to college. If they can’t just go from high school being lonely and never getting out of their house to suddenly going to college and joining a club, which would be awesome.
[25:32] Eric: Yeah. Most people in education, whether it’s a special ed teacher or the high school counselor, what have you, they’re there because they love students and they love helping students succeed. That may get sometimes lost in the bureaucratic maze, but I do think that for the vast majority of them, their heart is in the right place and someone like you comes along with an innovative idea and a way to do it that’s not going to break their budget. I think some people are going to be receptive.
[26:04] Jason: Yes, I guess. Where do you see students falling apart the most once they leave home and go to college? If they don’t go to a community college and they live at home, if they move away from home to college, where do they tend to break down the most?
[26:19] Eric: Well, you’re assuming they’ve gone through the whole process up until that point successfully. I see a lot of challenges in the college application process itself with students struggling with deadlines. Colleges have their deadlines for applications and various requirements. Students have to get the letters of recommendation and request transcripts and so on. Some students struggle with various pieces of that, but assuming they’ve navigated all that, and that’s why I’m here, to help them succeed. If they just go to a college that because of if their choice of college doesn’t take into account their support needs, that could really backfire. So if they say, I’m going to go to this college because it’s the closest one to home, or because all my friends are going there, or because I love the sports at this college, and they don’t take into account, hey, I need executive function coaching, I need social skills coaching. If they’re not taking account their various needs, then they could fall flat very quickly. In fact, that’s really why I went from being a psychologist to being a consultant, an educational consultant, because I had seen students in my therapy practice who went off to college and didn’t even make it through the first year. And that’s because they either weren’t college ready, and they could have dressed that through some of the things we talked about earlier, or they just went to a random college that didn’t have any special support program. Many colleges do have learning support programs for kids with a variety of diagnoses or autism support programs, specifically for students on the spectrum. And there are other supports outside of college you can bring in if you for some reason, you’re at a college that doesn’t have those things. The other thing is that sometimes students are resistant to access these supports to disclose their diagnosis. When you talk with them about it in high school, they’ll say, oh yeah, you know, I’m on an IP, but I don’t really need all that stuff. I don’t think I’m going to need that in college. I just want to see how it goes. And if I need things in college, I’ll worry about it, then that’s the wrong approach. In my opinion. That’s like saying, oh, well, if I get into a car accident, then I’ll put on my seatbelt. If my house catches on fire, then I’ll buy fire insurance. These are things to have in place. Maybe you’ll need them, maybe you won’t need them. Maybe you won’t need them as much as you did in high school, but have them in place and be able to advocate for yourself and learn about your needs in high school. Go to your IEP meetings, understand what your challenges are, and be honest with yourself about them. None of us is perfect. None of us is completely free of challenges. You may be amazed at certain things. That doesn’t mean you don’t need support in other areas. And the sooner you can be honest and comfortable with that and seek help when you need it, the more likely you are to succeed in college, whether that’s going to the tutoring center or the counseling center for mental health issues or talking to a professor because you don’t understand what the professor talked about in class. There’s lots of ways to get support in college, lots of resources out there. It’s just up to students to use them. And that’s one of the key differences between high school and college. In high school, kids are really being kind of spoon fed. These supports, they’re on the IEP. All these supports are being delivered every week in college. The laws are different. The model is different. It’s not success. It’s access. You have access to all. These resources, but nobody’s forcing them. If you never go to the children’s center or the counseling center, there’s no accountability. There’s no consequences, except you may not pass your classes and you may drop out of school, but there’s no professor saying, hey, you didn’t show up in class or you didn’t come to me for help. Occasionally, a professor might show concern, but especially if you’re in a big university with large classes, that’s likely to happen.
[30:19] Jason: I love parents who say to their child, I love you too much to pay for your school with you not signing a release of information from your university to me. I want that access. I won’t use it, I won’t abuse it. But I will only pay for school if you are willing to let us be there as a safety. And I’m sorry. That sucks. I know you wouldn’t want to do that. I wouldn’t want to go to college and self identify as something either. I kind of would want to put that all behind me, that’s that horrible high school experience. I just want to move on and be normal. But, buddy, I’m your safety net. I am going to be there. So I need to be able to speak to the university. If you suddenly stop going to classes, someone needs to know.
[31:04] Eric: Yeah. And I think a lot of parents don’t actually realize that your child could stop going to classes. They could start failing out of their classes. They could be on academic probation. They could be disciplined. The college is not going to reach out to them and let them know that if the kid says, yeah, everything’s going great, and they could have dropped out of college.
[31:28] Jason: Well, they did. One story here. There was a kid living in our building basement, and he had been kicked out of Dixie State University two months previous, and he was living here in the basement because he didn’t dare tell his parents he couldn’t live in the dorms anymore because he had been dropped from classes. So they kicked him out of the dorms, and we talked to him. We found him. We kind of figured out, why is he hanging around? And we got him to call and talk to his parents. He was definitely neurodivergent somehow, but holy cow, that poor kid.
[31:58] Eric: Of course I want families to be fostering good relationships so that a student would feel comfortable in college disclosing to their parents if they were struggling or running into challenges. But this again goes back to the student being self aware of their challenges, being comfortable, self advocating the college, so that if they are starting to sync in any area and this is another aspect of college readiness, you need to know what your challenges are. You need to know when you need help, and you need to be able to independently seek out that help and apply it so that if you are struggling in class, you go up to the professor and say, can I see you in your office hours? Or you go to the tutoring center and get help. Or if you’re starting to fall back into depression or eating disorder or addictive patterns, that you go to the counseling center and get help. If you know these challenges and you seek help, you’ll be much better off than someone who didn’t. Those diagnoses don’t have to define you or limit you, but you have to embrace who you are and work with that.
[33:03] Debbie: Well, I was just thinking, in general, people that are highly successful in the world, they don’t do that by themselves.
[33:11] Eric: Absolutely not the teams of people they work with.
[33:14] Debbie: And no business is successful with just one person all by themselves.
[33:20] Eric: Of course, as long as with huge challenges who rely on their assistants or staff to help them in areas that they’re not very good at, we hire.
[33:31] Jason: Out and they pay for feedback. Instead of giving me feedback as a sign of failure, it’s no, no. I want the best feedback. Feedback is the breakfast of champions.
[33:43] Debbie: Yeah. So, I mean, just being able to recognize that, here’s my strengths and here’s where I struggle, and truly the success is finding the resources and help for the areas that you struggle in and so that you can really build on.
[33:58] Eric: And when you’re older, maybe marrying someone who’s good at stuff that you’re not good at. Absolutely.
[34:05] Debbie: Jason would not have his master’s degree if it weren’t for my super fast typing skills. An hour before he had to go to class, the paper was due.
[34:13] Jason: Oh, man. My anxiety about writing papers was just through the roof. She just said, would have to sit by me and type in my master’s program. I’m like, I can’t even face it. You’re going to have to help me type this paper. And I’m really good at what I do.
[34:28] Eric: Anxiety is a huge bugaboo for students in so many different ways, for so many different reasons. But they can learn. There are skills you can learn to manage your feelings, just like there are skills you can learn to become a better student. Yeah.
[34:45] Jason: And the thing I love about anxiety is that they must really care about it to be freaking out so much about something. I love that they care so much because I think it’s harder to teach someone to care about something than to teach them how to care the right amount because you’re into anxiety. So I love that problem.
[35:05] Eric: Right. It’s a great point. Like, if you’re anxious before a test, a standardized test, then you must care about the outcome. If you didn’t care, you’d be like, hey, whatever. If I don’t do well on it, who cares?
[35:15] Jason: Right. What else have we covered that you think is really important for anyone transitioning into college or helping someone to transition?
[35:27] Eric: We’ve actually hit some of the real key points, being ready for college, working on that readiness before college, between high school and college, of getting the support you need in college. Part of that, again, is like building the college list and choosing places where you’re going to thrive. I think the essays that students write for college is a great opportunity for them to get to know themselves and show the college who they are. And college is a great time to come into your own and discover yourself and find your tribe. So it’s really exciting. That’s part of why I like doing this work. I just think it’s a really exciting time for kids in their lives. And again, I’m always thinking long term in terms of setting them up for a career later on. Lots of students are thinking about that too, some not so much. But I think we’ve hit a lot of the key points.
[36:28] Jason: A couple of thoughts that I had that I think parents need to hear is one, just because they may not be ready to go to college doesn’t mean they’re ready to go and complete a vocational school or text school. And I think a lot of parents just tend to say, oh, well, if they can’t do university, they’ll go to a vocational school and somehow be successful there. That’s a mistake. As a matter of fact, once you sign up for a vocational school, you’re usually in for 18 to 24 months, and you can’t just drop out like you can at college. You can take a couple of classes, figure out what you like. The other problem is that community colleges, because they can get accepted right away. The problem that we see is that they don’t necessarily meet their social emotional needs at a community college. They don’t have the clubs, they don’t have the life. But if you send them off to university, they’re all alone and they can’t manage it. So it’s kind of a no win when you’re talking about essays and being accepted into universities and colleges. Right here in southern Utah at Dixie State University, we have open enrollment and they start wherever the students at because the state of Utah decided that they value education for everyone. And we don’t even have to deal with any of that acceptance issues because we can start right where they’re at. And there’s not even a community college nearby because there’s a university. That’s a huge bonus. We’ve been looking for a second location on the East Coast, and we just can’t find anything similar. That where we could have students who really struggled with their identities and their development and their education, and they really need the college experience, but they just can’t get into a university because they’re acts.
[38:07] Eric: I love that. I would love to see that replicated around the country. We can talk more about that, but I think that’s really cool. I agree with you about the social transition, and that’s something, again, family should be thinking about in high school? What’s going to happen? Especially if some of your friends are going off to college and they’re scattering in different directions. What are you going to be doing for a social life if you’re not going straight to college? If you do go to college, there’s all kinds of opportunities like clubs and sports teams. You can’t force kids to take advantage of those things in college, but you can certainly guide them to thinking about them. I know in some of the autism support programs they will have peer mentors, which is a great sort of bridge to helping kids build that socializing college, because the peer mentor will meet and the peer is another college student and they’ll say, hey, I know you love this topic, I know you love American history, whatever, let’s try out that club. I’ll go with you to the first meeting to help you get comfortable, and then after that, if you like it, then go back. Just helping kids make that first step is critical. But if they don’t go to college I agree developing that social skill once you’re out of school, developing a social network can be hugely challenging for a lot of people. Some people find a social network at work, but not always, especially in this day and age with more remote work. It’s probably harder than it used to be with people being on their phones in all their free moments. I don’t know if people are gathering around the water coolers as much as they used to in the old days. So, yeah, I agree, it’s a challenge.
[39:57] Jason: So lastly, we just want to hear what are you passionate about? What are you excited about? What gets you up in the morning? What do you love? I’d love to hear a little bit about what makes you tick.
[40:08] Eric: Well, it’s my work, maybe too much, maybe I need to have more worklife balance. But I love visiting colleges, helping kids learn about colleges, helping them move along that path to success in college or grad school. And I work with students all over the country and sometimes from other countries. So it’s just so cool meeting these students from all over the country or all over the world with so many different interests. And I love talking to them about the stuff they’re interested in. I’ve also recently expanded my team to be a larger, more diverse team to serve more students. But even when someone else on my team is going to be working with the student, I love being on that first meeting with the family and just getting to know all these cool kids who are doing interesting things and have interesting plans for the future.
[41:03] Debbie: So how can people find you? They want to reach out and get consulting for their sure.
[41:10] Eric: Well, my company again is Topcollegeconsultants. They can go to Topcollegeconsultants.com or email me at eric@topcollegeconsultants.com call eight three three, WeApply nice.
[41:25] Debbie: And I’ll link to that in the show notes. So if people want to find you or read some of your you have great content on your website.
[41:33] Eric: Thank you. I mean, I think it’s good for people to go to the website first and see if they like our approach, if they like what we stand for, if it looks like the kind of thing that would be helpful to them.
[41:45] Debbie: All right, well, we sure appreciate you coming on, and I think this was really important. My pleasure and helpful. And we hope our listeners have a great week and got something from this. I can just feel like maybe some of the stress levels about the whole thing.
[42:04] Eric: That would be great. That’s a big part of why I do this work, too, is the process has become so stressful and anxietyprovoking and complex. There’s over 4000 colleges to choose from. There’s all the different steps involved, the essays, and I want it to be an enjoyable process. It’s an exciting time in their lives. I think it’s cool to explore colleges, so I’m trying to help kids and families relax and enjoy it. And I know there’s the financial stress too. We didn’t talk about that, but I try to help families find the most affordable option as well.
[42:42] Debbie: I love that. Well, thank you so much.
[42:44] Eric: My pleasure. Thanks for talking to you both.
[42:47] Jason: Thanks for sharing.
[42:49] Eric: You’re welcome.
[42:52] Debbie: Thanks for joining us on this episode of Autism and Neurodiversity with Jason and Debbie. If you want to learn more about our work, come visit us at jason. Debbie.com, that’s Jasondebbie.com. You.
