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hello thanks for listening to our podcast autism goes to college hello I am Lindsay Washington and I’m just about

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to head back to school as a sophomore at Appalachian State University in bu North Carolina I’m majoring in Communications

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sciences and disorders with a minor in digital marketing I had a lot of academic success in my freshman year

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even made the Deans List twice but I also had some challenges getting to classes could be confusing there were

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ups and downs on the social side and with dorm life so I’m going back for my second year with some experiences and

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strategies I’m here with Katherine O’Brien the host of the autism goes to college podcast and I will hand it over

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to her hey everyone we met Our Guest Lindsay on Tik Tok where autism goes to

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college had some fun this summer check out our Tik Tok and join the conversation when you have a minute I’m your host Katherine O’Brien and I’m a

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student at UC Riverside where I’m pursuing my PhD in education focusing on student teacher relationships between

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autistic students and their teachers and also on the transition to adulthood for autistic young adults in college and

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understanding their experiences of relationships and identity our podcast is part of a whole bunch of resources that you can find at autism gooc

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col.org where you can also see clips from from our documentary film check out blogs and find the whole podcast series

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at the end of this episode you can also hear details on how to see the film but for now I’m happy to bring you this conversation with Lindsay Washington for

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our back to school episode welcome to the new season so Lindsay you are a

Chapter 2: Social media sensation on the spectrum

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social media sensation with Tik talk and YouTube where you talk about college life from your perspective as a student on the Spectrum this summer you posted

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your recap how did you decide to make and share social media content um I just want to um have a platform where I can

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communicate and put my voice out there I’m also very creative and I just love to put my work

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out there so you are looking ahead to your sophomore year how does it feel

Chapter 3: Looking ahead to Sophomore year

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different this fall as compared to this time last year so so last year I was new

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to the school and I didn’t know where I was going where everything was but compared to this year I would know where

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everything is and I will be more adjusted to the campus so anxiety wise it sounds like it

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might be a little better yeah a lot better not that much anxiety that makes complete sense can

Chapter 4: Highs and lows of Freshman year

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you share some of the highs and lows of your first year of college of course so some of the highs that I had were um

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first of all having a successful freshman year I made the Deans List twice the first semester and the second

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semester of my freshman year I also joined a couple of clubs such as the iniversity Christian club and I’m going

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to be continuing that this year some cons were living with a stranger for the first time I had a lot of anxiety

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because I’ve been an only child and it was something that I had to get used to and also living without my parents for

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the first time even though I was close it was still hard what happened with your um roommate

Chapter 5: Roommate issues

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situation and living away from home for the first time you referenced that being kind of anxiety provoking but how did it

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turn out so initially when I first met my roommate during moveing day I thought that she was really nice but as the year

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goes on we weren’t getting along and which created a lot of

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conflict that’s a shame what ended up happening did you find support for the conflict with your roommate I did so my

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roommate and I filled out a roommate agreement I communicated to my ra it didn’t work out because it didn’t work

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out she ended up moving out of the room and did online classes while I ended up with a single room for the rest of the

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year oh I see so your roommate left the dorm she did she

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did oh well that sounds like it was probably an intense situation I’m glad you had the support to handle it and I’m

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sorry it didn’t work out how you how you planned was College how you were expecting or were there surprises along the way

Chapter 6: Is college what you expected it to be?

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I think it was pretty much mostly what I expected maybe with little changes with making my own

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decisions for instance what I have to eat every day and just making my own schedule between my whole day like what

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I’m going to do in between classes and so on yeah there’s a lot of autonomy have

Chapter 7: Strategies to structuring your day

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you found strategies that help give your day more structure oh I have so I have a big calendar up in my room to where I

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write important due dates for my homework assignments and important test when it comes to exams and tests I also

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keep my planner up today by making sure I write down all the assignments for each of my classes and color coding and

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I also de um would develop a relationship with my professors early on before school started and I would advise

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this for anyone who goes to College to make sure that your professors get to know you so that way my professors know

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who I am and what my accommodations are and work around it yeah that personal

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connection really can make a difference when you need help in the moment I love all that advice I think having the the

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visuals to remind you of the schedule is really crucial it helps me too um so how

Chapter 8: Why Appalachian State?

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did you choose appalachin State well other schools were on your list of colleges okay so initially I went to

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high school in Pennsylvania so initially I was looking at two schools in Pennsylvania and as and as I was

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researching my parents were considering a move to North Carolina then ultimately we did move to North Carolina which led

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me to two schools there which one was a small and private university while the other one was mids which was appalachin

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State and from there I decided based on accommodations and ab State one because

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they offered the resources for those on the Spectrum excellent so app State’s

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midsize and it has resources can you tell me just a little bit more about the resources you found I think people will be curious to hear what’s offered of

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course so my school offers a program called hand and it’s stands for um Al

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for help for autism and neurodiversity and it’s a support network for students in the community

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and my school was also listed as one of the top 30 colleges for those on the

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Spectrum according to the applied behavior analysis program guide oh

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fantastic so they have a positive reputation in this area they do they do and did you find that that was true to

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your experience so far oh absolutely absolutely oh phenomenal okay I’m glad

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the program is helping how did you go about disclosing and asking for accommodations was that something you

Chapter 9: How to disclose your accommodations

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did during the application process it was definitely something that I did during the application

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process and I also um was able to mention it to my professors when I

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requested my accommodations did you have any second

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thoughts about being open or or was that natural for you it was natural for me very

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natural great and what accommodations are are you using are they helping yes they are very helpful and they help me

Chapter 10: What are Lindsey’s accommodations?

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to be successful so some of the accommodations that I use are no taking assistance so I use a specific app

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called Otter where it transcribes exactly what my professors say and since the college lectures are very fast-paced

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I tend to miss stuff so whenever I go back and redo my notes I would listen to the lecture again and then write down

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whatever I miss I also have an A Time extension for test and exam

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those are the ones that I have um I find them very helpful as well me too so are

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there parts of the hand program um that go beyond your accommodations tell me a

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little more about that for right now I am working with the office of disability resources for my accommodations but I am

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looking into working with hands to help with job opportunities oh oh that makes sense so

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it’s more of a thing as you progress in your college career correct to continue uh to offer support for the future well

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it’s great to be looking ahead thanks for clarifying um yes okay so let’s talk about your major

Chapter 11: Lindsey’s major

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you share on social media that you study communication sciences and disorders which is an area that you’ve received support in the past can you talk about

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the journey from being maybe a client of somebody who’s who does communication Sciences to being an

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expert of course so um as a person with autism who undergone speech therapy at a

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very young age I’ve always been passionate about speech therapy and my speech therapy experience in the past

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has really helped me and it was really good to develop comprehension analytic and social skills that I need

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to utilize in my daily life and I want to be and I want to be helpful to others because I’m a very helpful person

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regardless of the disability how have you found the classes in your major are they meeting your

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expectations oh absolutely a lot of the information said so far from each of the classes that I took were really

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interesting and fascinated me that I was even researching a lot of the information outside of

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class it’s wonderful that you have a passion for it I’m glad that it’s exciting that that’s exactly what you want out of college and thank you what

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about the professors particularly the professors in your major how have your interactions been with them most of my

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classes are General Ed requirements but so far I had a really good experience with my professors they’re friendly and

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they’re very helpful and they’re very understanding of my accommodations and they’re also welcome to have additional office hours um with

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me to make sure I understand the material fantastic so it sounds like

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they’ve been very supportive absolutely I’m absolutely me

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too and you said it’s important that you met your professors um early on so they got to know you do you

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have any other tips and tricks for students uh who want to have good interactions with

Chapter 12: How to build a relationship with your professors

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professors I would say utilize all the resources that they have like for participation

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Etc to help you be successful so you mentioned your DM situation let’s talk a little bit more

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about the overall social experience in college how would you describe the social side of your first year it’s

Chapter 13: The social side of Lindsey’s freshman year

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definitely very a little bit difficult because especially with living with

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someone that’s different from me it was hard to get adjusted and also in general

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it was just hard for me to make friends I would be the one usually to introduce myself and be friendly but however

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people don’t reciprocate which leavs me to a lot of loneliness and

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isolation and because I dealt with a lot of that in high school I was afraid that I was going to experience it in college

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as well do you have any places where you found you could try to meet people or is it is it just still just kind of tough

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I’m I’m trying to meet people through the clubs and also at the dining hall whenever I eat lunch and dinner

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throughout day I also try to meet people in my classes so you mentioned clubs and you

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mentioned connecting socially in them how are the clubs going the clubs so far are going really well I like the

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iniversity Christian club that I’m doing right now and I’m looking into continuing to do it this year but I’m

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also looking into doing the black Student Association at my school along with one creative Club

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what is one creative Club I’ve I’ve never heard of something like that they do media and they do social media were

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there any clubs that you joined that you found didn’t suit you the nor Divergence student and allies Club definitely

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wasn’t a fit and the reason being was because it was male dominated and they weren’t doing a lot of

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activities so they were doing a lot of um information stuff so talking about um autism and

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ADHD for example information about each of those areas and resources that you can utilize to learn

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more okay so they were kind of doing advocacy basic knowledge sharing

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correct and you also mentioned that there were just a lot of guys in the club have you have you found it more

Chapter 14: Being a woman on the spectrum in college

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challenging to be a woman on the Spectrum in college or have you noticed that being a different

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experience you know what it definitely has been a hard experience to just find other women that are related to me and

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like and talk about the same issues that we are dealing with but otherwise it’s been

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easy yeah no that makes sense aside from um your academic

Chapter 15: What social supports did Lindsey use?

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accommodations did you um access any social supports or counseling on campus

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you know what I am aware of the counseling services that they have around campus but I’m going to try to

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look more into it this year so it sounds like not yet were there things that you did instead of that that helped you feel

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supported and coping with the loneliness yes so I would utilize my

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YouTube channel to um because it’s a great outlet for me to communicate and to be creative whenever I feel lonely I

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would also lean on my support system I would pray I also like to listen to

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music because it’s very therapeutic and relaxing along with taking photos and online

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shopping yeah I think the internet can be such a healing way to connect with other neurod Divergent people who maybe

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aren’t close to us or on our campus but really understand what we’re going through absolutely you mentioned your support

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system who who is part of your support system can you say a little bit about that of course so my mom my dad um my

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grandma and with that also a couple friends that I made in high school oh have you stayed in touch with

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your high school friends I have I have any tips for students that are going to college that want to continue

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those friendships from high school the biggest thing that I have is to be yourself it is so easy whenever you are

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in an unfamiliar environment with a lot of strangers around you to um lose your

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identity so make sure that you um be your authentic self and present the self

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you want um other people’s to see you look looking ahead to this fault you know where you’ll be living and what

Chapter 16: Plans for Sophomore year

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courses you’re taking can you give us like a a preview of what you’re most looking forward to absolutely so I’m

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looking forward to continuing to get involved in clubs so continuing the iniversity Christian club and looking

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into one creative club and also the black Student Association meeting new people and

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taking classes within my major I’m also going to be in a single room this year and some of the classes that

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I’m going to be taking is World Civilization another major class for um

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it’s like anatomy and physiology of communication disorders I’m also taking another writing

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class um as part of my gen Ed requirement and also a survey um of

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social psycholog ol ology class and an oral of interpretation which is basically theater oh it sounds like there’s just

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so much to look forward to thank you so much for sharing Lindsay this has been a great um great little chat I think

Chapter 17: Conclusion

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particularly other female college students like us will relate to it thank you and there’s one more thing that I would like to say I my YouTube channel

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is Lindsay Washington be sure to subscribe now I’m I’m currently on my way to 400 subscribers I do

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documentaries Vlogs and more so be sure to stay tuned all right thank you for listening

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to our podcast autism goes to college and now as promised here are ways to see the documentary the documentary film autism

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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

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from your Apple TV or most Smart TVs by going on the Vimeo On Demand app you can also find a direct link on our website

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at www. autism gooc col.org the film is also available for educational use and live and hybrid screening events all the

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relevant info and links can be found on our website thank you so much for listening following us on Instagram Facebook and Tik Tok and especially for

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adding your reviews on Apple podcasts our show is specifically for students on the spect from navigating college and we really appreciate your support for

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autism goes to college thanks for

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[Music]

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listening that’s the outro

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