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hello and thank you for listening to our podcast autism goes to college my name is Dominic Zulo and I am a junior attending Bridgewater State University

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in Bridgewater Massachusetts I’m here with an update about how it’s all going for me when I was on this podcast two years ago I was

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just starting to commute to Bridgewater State after starting out at a community college now I’m deeply involved with

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Campus Life at BSU I’m on track to graduate by May 2026 with a bachelor’s degree in communication sciences and

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disorders and a minor in music and I’m working to this semester create an internship program that I will Pioneer and hopefully grow for all students on

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campus with any disability to gain work experience I’m here with Katherine O’Brien the host of the autism goes to college podcast and

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I’m gonna hand it over to her hey everyone Dom welcome back and thanks for joining us again so catch us up a little

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bit when we left off you had just been made the transition from Community College and transition to Bridgewater

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State which is a four-year um mixed residential and commuter School uh you said at the time you were thinking of

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moving to campus how’s that worked out so weirdly enough I eventually decided

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um not to live on campus and just um go forward with commuting because I realized that even as a commuter there

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were still ways that I could get involved obviously the resident know each other more so they’re more close-knit but whereas the residents

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seem to have like you know their own little friend groups that they hung out with like I like like I like my close friends but I’m not somebody who wants

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to be with you know the same person all the time I try to go from person to person to give all the people that I’m

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close with on campus campus an equal amount of time um and that’s one of the benefits to being a commuter um along

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with a fact that you can meet other commuters you can still get benefits from the commuter office like they give out free lunch to commuters they did

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that like three or four times a semester you don’t get you don’t get those benefits if you’re a resident so and on top of that commuting also saves money

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like you don’t have to pay for housing and really all you got to spend is gas money and that’s it I will say

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though I did live on campus for two summers during my first summer as an orientation leader in 2023 and my second

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summer as an orientation leader in 2024 and it was really my first experience living with roommates living with other

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people and I hadn’t really gotten as much experience with independent living skills prior to living on campus for

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those Summers because I mainly commuted but once I lived on campus for the summer of 23 and 24 for o team my

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Independent Living skills I would say Skyrocket I learned more about time management getting to work on time um

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being there for the new students when I needed them when they needed me the most and also being there for myself when I needed to take care of myself and step

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back and take a break that’s great to hear it sounds like it give you a lot of insight so you chose to keep

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commuting um and it sounds like that hasn’t kept you from experiencing Campus Life what about your academics um have

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you been in receiving accommodations feeling supported how’s it going um in terms of academics and accommodations

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I’ve felt very supportive for the University they do a lot for students with accommodations like we have this testing center on campus where if you

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are accommodated to take an exam away from the class in the testing center on your own you can do that right there and

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I take all my exams in the testing center my professors are very supportive about it um there are some things like

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inclass quizzes that I have to do in class but when it comes to exams they always make the the exception for me to do it in the testing center and any

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other student who needs to do it in the testing center as well um and it’s a great resource testing services is

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incredible student accessibility services and accommodations there are top tier and I feel like that if I

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didn’t have those accommodations I wouldn’t be thriving in the way I am nor nor if I didn’t have access to the

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testing center or any disability Resource Center on campus yeah and you say professors are supporting your

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testing accommodations are they receptive and understanding how are those conversations with professors well the professors have always been

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receptive to my needs as well as you know allowing me to take the test away from the rest of the class some of them

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have been a little bit more stringent about recordings like there are some professors I’ve had where I’m not allowed to record stuff in their classes

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but I’ve also but that’s fine because I’ve mainly take notes on my own pen I find it much easier to write

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notes um by hand as opposed to doing it on the computer because when you’re on the computer you you get distracted by

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other tabs your mind goes elsewhere and there’s all those distractions whereas writing uh writing

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on paper enhances my learning ability and also enhances my ability to thrive in the classroom and I even had

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professors this past semester who addressed that with me in the syllabus It’s always important to read the syllabus because that’s where you’re

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going to learn some of your most knowledgeable things that you’ll get out of the class absolutely and another thing I’m hearing from you is it’s

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really important to understand what helps you learn the material and internalize it and stay focus focused um you’ve made like tremendous strides uh

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since I taught you in high school in that regard so that’s awesome to hear that that’s help helping you had a recorder pen is that something you’re

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continuing to use in the classes that allow it how did that turn out I would say it’s not something that I’m going to continue using because I kind of dropped

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it after sophomore year because some of my professors in addition to the fact they wouldn’t allow recordings it just wasn’t what was working for me cuz I

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found I would never go back to the recording it was always to I’m not like super techsavvy so I

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wasn’t very good with it okay also in addition to that working with a study group helps um like for example when I

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took a biology class this past semester um there were there was a group of Two

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Sisters in who I shared the class with um both of them were in my history class

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and my biology class back to back this past semester and we became friends during the semester and I noticed that I

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was struggling to start off in the class but they were both doing really well so from that point on WE formed a study group we took notes together before

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exams and our performances improved drastically in the class and I went from

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having a 50 on the first biology exam to getting an 82 on the final so working with others helps immensely so it’s

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important to get a study group where people who are doing well and are willing to do the work as opposed to just like a bunch of friends who are

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going to get chatty and get sidetracked focus on who’s doing well not who you’re close friends with that’s excellent

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advice uh do you have any other accommodations that have been really working well that you want to share um

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nothing specifically at the moment um I’m pretty much all set on my accommodations for pretty much the rest of my time at BSU but

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you actually did just give me the good reminder to submit my accommodations letter before next week so I will be doing that in the future we have an

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online portal on student accessibility Services where you submit your accommodations that way as opposed to doing a handwritten letter and it works

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out perfectly so how is it going in your major um do you have an academic coach

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that’s helping you sort of plan out the rest of your courses with the major and the minor what’s what’s it looking like

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uh for the next semester so I’ve had three different academic coaches well actually Four now during my time at BSU

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one during one during my fresh my first semester but she left after my first semester one that I had all throughout

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2023 one I had all throughout 2024 and I have a new one going into 2025 okay so one year to be with me

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until I graduate well each each um coach that I was with previously graduated and

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my most recent academic coach Julia was actually in grad school for speech language pathology so she had the

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same major except she was in grad school for it so I learned some tips and tricks about test taking and studying from her

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taking notes being prepared for an exam um and also skills about writing papers because while exams are something I

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struggle with writing papers and speaking intensive classes are actually something I do very well with oh great

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so you were able to refine some of your strengths too um yep and the hard work with Julia really paid

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off because my current fre to brag it’s it’s about a 3.3 currently which my plan

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is to at least get it up to 3.5 by the time I graduate and I feel that that’s an

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achievable goal so yeah absolutely um and the fact that you have have been raising it shows that you have the

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capacity to keep doing that um do you have you have a goal to graduate with

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honors um so at least Kum L at the very least um

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but but I’m not trying to go for like the highest tier but I believe Kum BL is at least a good place Kum L is 3.3 Magna

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Kum L is 3.6 and akum loud is 3.8 according to the Bridgewater regist website yeah um different campuses

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certainly have slightly different uh ways of finding those levels but it sounds like you’re on track uh with the

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3.3 so great work um and it academic coaching has been pretty integral to getting those skills absolutely but the

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thing that I also learned is don’t just do the bare minimum to get by aim for the highest grade you can get and do your best

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um I finished this past semester with all A’s and B’s and even got my first a in a major class so oh that’s wonderful

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there’s one class that I have to retake for my major but it’s often considered to be the hardest class in the major and

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is um one that I plan to retake to up my GPA and get a better grade my major is actually a weird one as well because the

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200 level classes are actually harder than the 300 level classes so oh really yep interesting so can you say a little

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bit more about that class that you struggled with you know what was what was so challenging and how are you going

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to confront it again well I actually had to retake two classes one of which I finished this past semester with a B+ on

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the retake great work okay but um speech anatomy and physiology was was a really hard class that I had

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to retake though I did better better on it the second time around because anatomy and physiology is a lot of moving Parts you got to know all four

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loes of the brain the respiratory system the articulatory system and the phonatory system and beyond and it’s a

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lot of moving Parts a lot of diagrams fill in the blank lot of memory stuff and the other class I have to retake is

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speech and hearing science which I cite to be the hardest class I’ve ever taken at BSU um I do do plan to retake it but

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um again it’s a lot of moving Parts more so than speech and hearing science again speech is a lungs up function and that’s

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primarily what it focuses on but the what what caused me to struggle

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in that class was I could recite the material word by word but it would just slip out of my mind once it came to the exams and knowing that I’ve seen what’s

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on the exams and I have my previous notes I feel I can do better this upcoming time around yeah um and having

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that previous experience will help you get a much deeper understanding and hopefully much closer to Mastery so I I

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salute you for sharing the experience of trying and not getting the success and and being willing to keep going yeah and

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the professor for that class is also my advisor um what’s up Dr AER giving a my advisor and I can say that out of all

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the faculty that I’ve met during my time at BSU I’ve learned more from her than any other faculty that I’ve worked with

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during my time at BSU oh wonderful so I got to give a huge shout out to her and overall are you continuing to enjoy your

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major finding it you know productive to study communication disorders towards your goal of supporting other people

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with disabilities I find it to be very productive and I believe that the internship that I’m creating for the Excel and SAS students next semester

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will be a huge step in the right direction and I’ve even been watching videos of autistic professional speakers because knowing that I did really good

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in public speaking but also want to change the lives for of people with disabilities for the better this would be a good career path for me to go down

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and maybe I would even have the opportunity to speak at my alma moer one day so I know you’ve had several jobs on

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campus prior to the internship that you’re going to be creating this coming sem um can you tell us a little bit more

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about the different jobs that you’ve had and you know living on campus for oot team how how did that go for you so I’ve

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had four jobs on campus um three of which I’m currently working but let’s start off with the first job I had on

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campus um do you still have that job I do I do not but the two years that

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I did it was it sweet that my job as an orientation leader um so last time we

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did a podcast at the start of the spring 2023 semester I walked into my orientation

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Team interview thinking you know this is something I want to be part of I’m not sure what to expect

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and then um I got the email in March right before spring break saying congrats on behalf of C

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you’ve been accepted to join o team for this for the summer of 2023 and from that point

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on it it it’s not just all the friends that I’ve made along the way and all the connections and all the new students and all the relationships that I’ve made

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with the CSE staff and the Pro Staff and the student staff and the faculty all across campus but also the growth that

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I’ve gotten out of that experience and the fact that I was able to improve my Independent Living skills drastically I

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was able to learn how to support others while also supporting myself at the same time

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and vice versa and getting the opportunity to try new things and do new things that I hadn’t done before prior

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to this I had never gone out on my own with a group of friends like without parents supporting me on the side but I

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was going to the movies with friends I was going out for for ice cream with friends we would do all these outings when we were off the clock hang out in the residence hall together I even

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hosted a SpongeBob night for all the new residence and it was so much fun and then we did the same thing the following summer and it was amazing that is

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amazing and for reference Dom I remember the summer of 10th grade when we did your class’s first community-based

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instruction outing with the blue group and what we did was we walked from our school through the parking lot down the

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sidewalk to a cafe in another building and then we walked back and that was like the whole accomplishment for that

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group at that time um so just in ter just considering the amount of growth that you’ve made since then is amazing and it is ATT tribute to you and also to

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all the people that have cared about you along the way I think and your family truth be told I will admit when I was at

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Milestones I was kind of you know young dumb and immature at times and a lot of the material that was being taught to us

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was stuff that deep down inside at the time I felt was stuff that was like oh I already know this why am I being taught

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this but after spending three years in the real world and especially working in retail and navigating the city on my own

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I’d say the staff at Milestone saved my life and I’m glad that it worked out for you oh so you lived on campus it was a

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tremendous growth opportunity um and you’ve moved into other roles on campus as well because

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that was the first job of four right yep um starting off was the first volunteer position I held on campus after o team

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which is um during freshman year I was a general member of program Council and program council is our organization on

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campus where we put on all the large scale events for the campus um Bingo Nights karaoke nights paint nights large

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scale events like concerts and all that sort of stuff and then the senior Traditions events and the spring and fall Traditions events including

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everything that includes homecoming and the senior events such as commencement ball and the senior Red Sox game um we

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do all that planning and I walked into it thinking you know hey I want to be part of this but one thing that caught my eye immediately was that it was a

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diverse group of people but it was very neurotypical not a lot of disability yeah inclusion there and on

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top disability is often the hidden axis of diversity that is overlooked and I decided that’s a big reason why I wanted

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to get involved and throughout my time as a member of program Council um I was

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the member recognition coordinator for my internship throughout sophomore year now the member recognition coordinator is the role of basically going around at

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events making sure everybody is involved and included in some way looking to create opportunities to make the

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organization more inclusive and exciting and in addition to creating uh quiet spaces for people with

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disabilities at our events and the event that we needed it this past March I worked with student accessibility

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Services BSU EXL cpdc our Special Olympics chapter um and even some

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Multicultural and LGBT organiz ations like the LG lgbtqia Pride Center and the

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Legacy Lewis and gain Center for inclusion and equity on campus along with other inclusivity groups on campus

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and I put on a special neurodiversity theme Bingo and our best buddies chapter um on campus helped host it as well

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going into it I didn’t think I was going to get a large turnout and we get ended up getting an attendance of roughly 200 people that night and a collaboration

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with 10 organiz ation on campus and it was just such an amazing night and I didn’t think it I would be able to pull

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it off but I couldn’t have done it without the support of my team that was by my side and even though I’m not part

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of the eboard anymore they seem to be continuing what I started and that makes me really happy to see that that’s great you’re having a huge impact on campus

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life it sounds like and I’m glad that they’re really receptive to that how often are you on C campus are

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you there most weekdays during my first three semesters I was there four days a week and these past two semesters I was

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there six days a week during during my first two semesters I would primarily just go to campus and leave attend an

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event if there was one but not really come by on the weekends and now I’m there on the weekends for cpdc children’s physical

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developmental clinic on campus another place where I intern I was a I was a clinician helping a child with um severe

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special needs work on physical and uh developmental goals in the pool and in the gym we have on campus and we would

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there were a whole bunch of kids that we would work with and uh clinicians and Senior staff and group leaders I was a

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clinician these past two semesters I got hired to be a group leader next semester which means I’ll be overseeing the clinicians and the kids and after I

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graduate it’s been decided that I’m going to apply to be a senior staff oh that’s wonderful Dom I’m glad that that

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that you found a a nitely contribute and and a career path even potentially that’s so

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good um sometimes I go in seven days a week if there’s an event I want to attend every day during the week or if

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there’s some there’s always something happening at BSU pretty much every day and if and if there’s an event I want to go to on a weekend or have to help out

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at I’ll be there as of the end of this semester I’ve been to 325 events on campus during my time there my goal is

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to hit 400 by the end of this upcoming semester and 500 by the time I graduate yeah what a testament to the fact that

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you can have the best of both worlds as a commuter student you know the support um and the savings that can come from

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living with family but also really being socially uh involved um so last time you were on the podcast

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we talked about music you had just finished up School of Rock are you staying involved with playing music on campus how’s that going um yep I’m still

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playing music on campus still taking guitar lessons still taking vocal lessons out of five semesters I’ve been on campus I participated in four of the

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vocal recitals awesome this past one this past semester I would say was the best one and I’m ready to make the next

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one even better in addition to that I’m participating in my first music Ensemble next semester and I’m going to be doing Corral Ensemble with a group of Music

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Majors because I’m a music minor and very cool and then my other two ensembles that I’ll be taking before I

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graduate are pop vocal Ensemble and then I want to take Corral again but there’s part of me that’s also thinking of

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taking um jazz band Ensemble oh interesting hearing you bring branching out from some of the uh The Rock and

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metal that was your bread and butter in high school I when I started High School I only listen to three different bands

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and now I listen to over 90 different bands of all different genres plus a variety of solo and local artists because you got to support local music

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while it’s still local I’ve been to 27 concerts and I have six more that that are coming up this year so far so which

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one are you most looking for for to that might be a hard question to

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answer if you want me to be perfectly honest I’d say it’s a tossup between

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um I’d say it’s a tossup between the Coldplay Music of the Spheres tour and the Lincoln Park reunion tour oh those

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are both going to be really good okay I just I I completely understand why it would be hard to choose between those two

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Park is like your favorite your band yeah still has been my favorite band

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since 2015 always will be 2014 actually yep no that was one of the first things I knew about you

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um so uh thinking back to the career it sounds like it’s going well in the clinic and you’re enjoying working with

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uh High needs kids um but what about the internship and the other career situation can you tell us just a little

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bit more about what you’re uh what you’re setting up on campus and what you’re doing for other students so um part of what inspired me to do the

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internship was also the fact that this past semester I um so like orientation

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leaders it’s a summer job so like you’re employed for the summer but you’re not necessarily part of the csse student

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staff team so CSE student staff jobs include infodesk attendant student engagement

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assistant this semester was my first semester being employed by Center for student

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engagement and BSU Excel I’m a peer mentor at the Excel program I worked with one student with a developmental

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disability this past semester helping him ease his transition into college and I’m going to be working with two

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students next semester and as my CS job is a bare mentor on campus which is

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another job that I work five hours a week to help new students on campus get involved at events and hang out and do

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that sort of stuff and get to know them and what inspired me to start this

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internship was while we had definitely made progress with creating more op more disability inclusive safe spaces I know

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not everybody’s going to get the gist but also try and get my co-workers to understand

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disability inclusion a bit more because one thing that I will this semester was probably this past semester was probably

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my most stressful semester yet because truth be told it was difficult being like I love csse and

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everything I do there but it was a little difficult this past semester being the only neurodiverse student on a

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mostly neurotypical roughly 60 student staff roster and while my co-workers

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were definitely understanding of it and understood what I did why I did some of the things I did I always felt like I

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had to explain myself and I was always having to explain myself always trying to like you know prove points across

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about like you know certain people with Autism do things a certain way or react to things a certain way

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and while my co-workers were understanding there were some struggles and occasionally other misunderstandings in that regard that I

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had to you know get worked out there were times as well where I felt like you know I was doing too much or going

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overboard with some of my interactions because I tend to be very affectionate in my Rea in my interactions with some

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people and on top of that there were also times where

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28 minutes, 28 seconds

where like I felt like I’m a guy who really wants to be included and is always trying to include people in

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28 minutes, 35 seconds

certain situations but whereas I was somebody who wanted to go from person to person a lot of my co-workers already

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28 minutes, 42 seconds

had their set friend groups and while they did invite me in to the conversations it felt a lot like I was

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28 minutes, 49 seconds

being an outsider or The Uninvited Guest or kind of being the elephant in the room and even though they were telling

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28 minutes, 57 seconds

me otherwise there was part of me deep down inside that felt you know maybe I’m doing a little too much and I found

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29 minutes, 4 seconds

myself overthinking a lot about that and yeah it it was It was kind of frustrating this last semester I will

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29 minutes, 13 seconds

admit that yeah I mean it sounds like you were navigating kind of the Hidden social roles of employment and also

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29 minutes, 22 seconds

maybe some double empathy issues where the way that you’re showing collegiality and wanting to

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29 minutes, 30 seconds

collaborate and and being open to being friends is different from what your co-workers are primed to expect being

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29 minutes, 37 seconds

neurotypical so that’s yeah definitely tapping into some good stuff there you

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29 minutes, 43 seconds

know I think that is what happens when there is inclusion at at the event level and inclusion at the seasonal position

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29 minutes, 51 seconds

level but higher up in the team everybody has been abled in until now

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29 minutes, 59 seconds

but I’m glad that you have noticed it and are working to create uh ways for

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30 minutes, 6 seconds

everybody to learn uh how to better collaborate do you have advice uh for students on the Spectrum who are looking

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30 minutes, 14 seconds

ahead planning for college or or maybe uh getting into college this winter and thinking about attending in the

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30 minutes, 23 seconds

fall um some advice that I have have is you know

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30 minutes, 30 seconds

um previously um during the previous one I I spoke about the previous podcast we did I spoke about like you know don’t be

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30 minutes, 39 seconds

afraid to stand up for yourself be an advocate but my my advice going forward is don’t

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30 minutes, 48 seconds

just Advocate you know like if there’s a certain like you know if you feel that there’s a lack of

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30 minutes, 56 seconds

disability inclusion on campus and that something needs to be done about it go to the right people talk to talk to

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31 minutes, 3 seconds

somebody who you know you would like would understand you on a personal level whether it be somebody neurodiverse or

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31 minutes, 10 seconds

neurotypical you could you could create a group you could create bonds and by creating bonds with people working

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31 minutes, 18 seconds

together on creating disability inclusion at universities and making them a better place for all not only will you form allies and

31:27

31 minutes, 27 seconds

friends in this you will make your University a better place for all and certainly you know move roadblocks for

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31 minutes, 36 seconds

people who really need that inclusion the most and most of all putting inclusion over integration because when

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31 minutes, 45 seconds

I first started at BSU I saw a lot of integration in neurotypical organizations but I didn’t see a lot of

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31 minutes, 52 seconds

inclusion and while I still feel that there is much work that needs to be done I am seeing more and more inclusion dayby day on a regular basis more

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32 minutes, 1 second

instances of neurotypical students exposing themselves to neurodiverse events and vice versa and it’s just

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32 minutes, 8 seconds

amazing to see what connections we can make and how we can create this and be in this together yeah and I think as

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32 minutes, 17 seconds

autistic students we are also part of a a national and even International network of people advocating on all of

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32 minutes, 25 seconds

our campuses to try to make things more inclusive and more meaningfully representative of the true diversity of

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32 minutes, 33 seconds

the human mind so definitely uh if you choose to join in this work uh Dom and I

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32 minutes, 40 seconds

are out there to doing it along with you fellow students no doubt about that all

32:47

32 minutes, 47 seconds

right um so I think that is our podcast thank you so much for the positive updates Dom it’s great to hear you

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32 minutes, 55 seconds

succeeding on so many levels um and also like having setbacks with challenging

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33 minutes, 2 seconds

classes and responding to that so productively thank you means a lot