Hey everybody, good evening and truly thank you all so much for attending this truly once in a UCLA uh event of the

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autism goes to college live taping. Like give it up. It’s a Thursday night.

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Thanks for coming. Uh for those of you who don’t know me, my name is Ryan Neil. I’m 21

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years old. I’m a junior at UCLA studying communications and disability studies. and I’m a proud autistic ADHD student.

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Uh when I first got to UCLA, I genuinely had a really difficult time. Uh UCLA

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wasn’t always super supportive of neurody divergent student needs. The supports that were in place were oftentimes inaccessible and information

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about them wasn’t always widely available. And most importantly for me, I didn’t feel like there was a strong sense of neurode divergent community and

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solidarity among the students, at least not one I felt particularly comfortable and e that was easy to engage in. So at

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that time in struggle, I connected with members of administration and essentially advocated for myself and others on how UCLA could be better. And

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that type of advocacy effort sparked what would later become known as the Breuan Neurodiversity Collective. UC a UCLA neurodiversity organization that to

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my knowledge is the first and only one that is exclusively neurode divergent studentled and exclusively neurode

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divergent student members. What’s been really cool about BNC for me is that over the course of the almost two years

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we’ve been around, the type of advocacy and supports and community that I really craved when I first got to UCLA, uh

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myself and other BNC members were able to create. So since we got started, we have an over 170 member Discord server

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of exclusively neurody divergent students who are able to share stories of experiences in classes, ask each other for help on accommodations and

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supports, and just generally talk about neurodiversity and autism and their experiences in an open and supportive

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environment. We’ve also done a lot of advocacy within administration to make information on accommodations more

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accessible and to engage campus partners on making sure there are programs and supports specifically tailor made for neurody divergent

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students. Along the way, I got in contact with the autism goes to college team. And a year ago, I actually had an

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interview with Katherine where I spoke about the beginning stages of starting BNC and my own experience coming to my own as a neurode diverent student

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advocate. So, what a treat it is a year later where so much has changed both with the podcast and BNC to come back to

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highlight some other students with incredible stories and to share a little updates of what I and BNC have been up to.

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Thank you.

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For a brief preview of what we have in store for you, we have this event is primarily composed of two student interviews, both of whom are autistic members of BNC. We have Jenny and Danny.

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They all have incredible and unique stories about being autistic and just being themselves in this large, beautiful, difficult, amazing

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institution of UCLA and navigating the college process in a way that I and Katherine have gone through ourselves.

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So, we’re going to start off with one interview around 25 minutes. We’ll have a brief intermission. We’ll have a segment where I sit down with Katherine

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and give a couple updates of where I’ve been since the last time we had our interview. We’ll close out with our second interviewee and then have a brief

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Q&A section before everyone’s excuse to mingle, interact, network, or otherwise get on with the rest of your day. Uh I

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think it’s really special that not only do we have BNC members in attendance today, but also several uh participants

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in the original Autism Goes to College documentary, which is super special, and I can’t wait to speak with each and every one of those folks. Well, without

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further ado, I pass it off to Katherine for the main portion of the program.

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Please enjoy and again, thank you all for coming.

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Um, so as Ryan said, I am Katherine O’Brien.

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Um, I am so excited to be here during April. I’m just going to call it autism month because we don’t have a consensus

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on whether we’re accepting or aware or some other thing. Um, and I don’t know,

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getting getting sketchy out there. Um, the lesser the better. But quickly, a little bit about me. I’m currently a

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graduate student at the UC Riverside School of Education. I’m in my mid30s.

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So, before coming to do my PhD, I was a classroom teacher teaching science and specializing in working with younger

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autistic students. Um, now that I’m in graduate school, um, I teach a course during the summer to teacher ed

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candidates about autism in the classroom. I also have, uh, several lines of inquiry working with Jan, who

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introduced herself at the beginning, including supports for autistic students and their teachers in grades K through

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two. um increasing access to diagnosis and a study that will comprise my dissertation that I’m working on with

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Amy Hoffman who’s in the audience tonight uh about increasing access to diagnosis for college students and

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centering the experience of autistic college students themselves in understanding our diagnosis needs. Um,

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so, uh, before I came to UCR, one of my students, another Autism Goes to College podcast guest, Preston, um, asked me to

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make sure that the assessment tools we use don’t feel so othering because he had just had a three-year RIAL and it made him feel terrible. Um, and I’m so glad to be here doing just that tonight.

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So, my first guest this evening is Jennifer Maki, who’s a departmental scholar in linguistics here at UCLA. So,

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she has a bachelor’s and she is soon to graduate with her master’s degree degree, pardon me, in linguistics. So,

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congratulations. You’re about to be a double Breuan, a double graduate. Um, but your college career did not begin

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here at UCLA. I understand that it’s been a long journey to success.

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Um, so like many of the students in the UC’s, you transferred from community college and like many of the students

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here tonight, your journey was affected by the COVID pandemic. So, Jennifer is incredibly involved on campus, including creating a

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Discord server with over a thousand students during the pandemic. Very impressive. Um, she’s an academic peer

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advisor on the Breuan Mental Health Advisory Committee, an executive board member of Handson, which is the, uh,

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UCLA ASL club, and a coordinator for both UCLA Disabled Student Union and Breuan Neurodiversity Collective. And

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you are also the president for two years of the Breuan Linguistics Society and UC which is UCLA’s uh linguistic student

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organization which is promoting the field of linguistics. Um that is so cool. I’m gonna hand you the mic and I’m going to turn it off before I do that.

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Welcome. Oh, it’s an honor to be here.

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All right. I’m so glad to have you. So, as I said in your intro, the road to UCLA wasn’t direct and you transferred

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from community college. I also heard that you took a gap year. So, how did you end up here? Can you talk us through it?

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Yeah. Uh, so actually uh in high school I almost didn’t graduate. Um, so in high

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school I was struggling a lot with my mental health and at that point in time I didn’t realize uh a lot of the things I was experiencing could be related to

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being uh like neurody divergent. And so in high school um I actually was hospitalized uh twice uh during my

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senior year. Um I I in addition to being autistic, I also have OCD and um I ended

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up being hospitalized in my senior year and then again uh and then I went to a partial hospitalization program and I

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was in a lot of treatment. I missed a lot of school and I used to be a straight A student and I was taking the honors classes. I was in international

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balorate program and then suddenly I was basically not going to graduate. I mean if you were hospitalized it sounds like

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you were struggling to stay alive and healthy. So that’s a lot to take on especially for somebody who had so many

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accomplishments. Um so what happened next? Were you it sounds like you must have been able to find your way through high school.

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Yeah. So uh I after um I was able to graduate by just passing English. So I barely passed and I was able to

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graduate. Um but I will say that like my self-esteem was really uh uh really down uh especially in high school when I had

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like kind of tied my identity so much to my grades. Um and so after that I was

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actually feeling really really uh really really down and after my hospital experience which wasn’t a good one. Um,

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I decided to take a gap year. Uh, more of like not really like decided to take a gap year. I just didn’t have any motivation to really go forward with

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school. So, I took time off and u kind of rebuilt myself and then um kind of

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focused on like doing like daily tasks like just trying to kind of restart uh life. So, I do things like I don’t know like baking or hobbies and yeah just

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feeling like you’re somebody who can make something again that self-efficacy.

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So, how did you get back on track? Did you always know you wanted to be a UCLA student? Was that always the goal?

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Oh, uh, so actually, uh, funny story, I did not know, well, I had only heard about UCLA. I knew it was a good school

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and it was something I had wanted to apply for when I was back in high school. Um, but because of being hospitalized, I actually didn’t end up

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pursuing it. And uh during my gap year, I took time and then applied for community college and then I decided to

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transfer and I applied to most of the UC’s. Well, congratulations. Um so how was starting out at at community college? Did it work well?

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Actually, I really loved community college. I really did. I had I like the small classes. I like the teachers in which they would like work one more

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one-on-one and like really I feel like they really focused a lot on teaching and so I really liked that environment.

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U and plus my community college also had different success centers and um they had like one focus on like just language and they had that’s actually where I

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learned ASL originally. Yeah. They had a language success center and all the tutors there were deaf and my ASL

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teachers were also all deaf and I really really like enjoyed like the class and someone who had always like kind of like

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an like auditory disability like I I didn’t really fully identify as being part of the community at that time but that’s how I kind of got into like ASL

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and it seemed like that’s been very helpful for you. So, you mentioned the success centers at community college being a good thing. What was it like

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looking for support when you got to UCLA?

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Uh, I will say that like uh at my community at college, we had a disability uh disability program that I

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was part of and then uh when I transferred to UCLA, uh it was during the pandemic, so it’s a little bit different, but things were very hard to

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navigate, especially online. But even when I transferred to in person, I still found it difficult to navigate. It was just like there’s so many things out

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there and so many resources. I didn’t really know and I felt like my orientation was a little bit rushed because it was online. It was during the pandemic. There was a lot of recordings

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and so I actually didn’t really I wasn’t part of CE, which is the disability program um at UCLA. When I first started, I didn’t register until about

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like uh about like basically two years ago. So basically about half my time at UCLA I didn’t have accommodations and

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then uh then I finally registered and then I had accommodations but then I was a little bit like I don’t I was not used to it. I was like not sure if I wanted

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to use my accommodations or and uh but yeah. Yeah. Sidebar about CE. Last year I was at UCLA doing a fellowship for

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graduate students and I found the registration process so confusing and intimidating that I simply never did it

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and just made do with informal accommodations for the entire year. So you’re not alone in that. Yeah. But how was the transfer for you academically?

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Did it go okay?

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I’d say uh I mean to be actually as so trans pandemic I know that a lot of people struggled in the pandemic. I will

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say that as someone who is really anxious socially it actually was nice.

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Oh yeah see how that would be. Uh I liked my Zoom classes actually. Uh, I like the fact that I couldn’t see like

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the other hundred students. Uh, and that I could communicate through the Zoom chat instead of having to like raise my

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hand and speak in class. Uh, so I really like just like chatting in the Zoom chat and like if I felt like really nervous, I could just like private message the

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professor to ask my question. Uh, so I didn’t have to like even put it in like the like the full like class chat. So, um I actually had like a relatively

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smooth process given the circumstances of the pandemic. Yeah, absolutely. So, what about your living arrangements? Um

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did you move to campus during the pandemic and how did that go?

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Oh, yeah. That was uh so it was confusing. So, during the pandemic, we didn’t know if we were going to when we were going to move back in person or we

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were going to stay online for longer because we it was the p middle of the pandemic. We didn’t know how long this was going to last and uh so things were

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uncertain. I did uh plan to move. So we actually uh I actually like got an apartment by campus. Uh and then but

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because we stayed online, I kind of just like would move back and forth between like uh being at home and being like by the apartment because there’s not really a need to be at the apartment. Uh but I

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also kind of wanted to live independently. So, I I was there at the apartment uh and uh I kind of got to know a little about Westwood, but in the

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pandemic when it was very empty. So, I’m hearing that academically Zoom worked really well for you, but you were navigating some anxiety at that time.

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Did you identify as autistic yet? Was that something you were thinking about?

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No, I actually had not identified as being autistic at that time. I knew I always felt like a little bit different.

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Uh I mean in when I was in elementary school um kids would bully me and uh they would actually they would be like

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oh like you’re mute, you’re deaf because you don’t respond or because I was like not really speaking and then in middle school the teasing still happened. They

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call me like weird or strange and uh kind of like socially I know like kind of realized like oh they didn’t really want to hang out and kind of happened

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throughout high school a little bit. Um, and so I kind of already realized that I was like different, but I thought it was because like maybe I’m just like not cool. Like maybe I’m not like a cool

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person. That’s why like they don’t want to hang out with me or something. I don’t know. Yeah. And uh it was really more uh towards maybe my my senior year

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of like uh of college in which I was like uh actually my my uh my boyfriend mentioned that thought he was autistic.

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Oh, okay. and he had pointed out some traits of mine in which he thought I was also autistic. And at first I was like

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me I was like how like I never really thought about it that much and I mean I as I seen like the media and how the media usually portrays autistic people

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and I was like oh like I’m not sure. Uh and I was going through mental health treatments uh still through college and

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I was having uh actually a lot of hard time with depression and anxiety. Um, and I was trying multiple different

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kinds of medications, a lot of different therapy, and nothing was helping me. I I didn’t feel like I could relate to my therapist. I feel like my therapist

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didn’t understand me. And um, I was basically, you know, having like one treatment after another after another after another. And nothing was working.

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And my psychiatrist and my therapist were like confused like, you know, why isn’t this working? Sometimes they would like, you know, I’ve had a therapist say like, oh, it was like I wasn’t trying

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hard enough. And I had people tell me like I wasn’t trying hard enough. And um uh and then that kind of whether I was autistic kind of came back and I was

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like, “Huh, like maybe this is the missing piece. Uh maybe this is like what I like maybe this is this thing

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that is like I am just like neurode divergent. Maybe that’s why I’m not able to connect with my therapist. Maybe that’s why I’m like not responding to

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treatment.” And um at at first I was diagnosed with OCD and actually came first uh second was autism and then most

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recently is ADHD. I see. Okay. And um what changed for you when you got

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those three pieces of information about yourself?

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Yeah. Uh so when I was actually it was very hard to get the autism diagnosis or

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evaluation first. Uh, I spent maybe two years trying to get an autism evaluation. Uh, like I was on a wait list for 10 months at the CAN clinic.

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They used to say CAN clinic waiting for them to tell me that they actually don’t take my insurance. Oh, because Kaiser is your primary. You have to work it out with Kaiser. And then so they were like,

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“Okay, so we’re going to have cancel your appointments.” So they canceled my appointments three days before and I already it was a two-day evaluation. I already like took off work and I had

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arranged to like to like go to the appointment and stuff and they’re like, “Nope, canceled.” And so, uh, then I had to search again for like another year,

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uh, trying to figure out how to get tested, uh, for autism. And it was very expensive and, uh, eventually found a

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cheaper option, but it it took a very long time. Um, yeah. Yeah. So, it it was

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a multi-year process while you were a college student. How was your college career going while all that was

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unfolding and you were dealing with a lot of what sounds like frustrating setbacks medically?

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It was really rough. Um I So my master’s program is actually a one-year program.

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I see. And so it’s like a special like accelerated program. It’s like kind of like a plus one program. You get the bachelor’s and masters like

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simultaneously in a way. And um so I was expected to graduate in a year but all this medical like all this like mental health things were all happening in that

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year and actually the first quarter in the first week of class of fall quarter of my master’s year my grandma ended up

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in the hospital and so I was with her in the hospital and then she passed. Oh I’m so sorry. Thank you. And um after uh

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that uh my OCD part because of the stress my OCD symptoms intensified. They were like really bad. I was housebound for like a long time. I had to withdraw.

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I I’ve withdrawn like twice. Uh and I at the same time, so I was going through a lot of uh treatments. So I went through

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another PHP. I was in a partial hospitalization program again for five months. And then uh well partial hospitalization plus IOP was five

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months. I see. So that was quite a long time that you were off of school.

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But did you find that helpful or did you still not have the right supports?

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Honestly uh despite the fact that I did five different outpatient programs was doing

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individual therapy weekly and had done 14 different medications at that time. I

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also did TMS transcranial magnetic stimulation. Uh I think it was 76 rounds. Uh so sorry two rounds 76

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treatments in total. Okay. So it might be easier to list what you didn’t try. Yeah.

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So what did you find that was finally helpful because you seem to be doing very well today?

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Um honestly it was partly getting diagnosed uh and understanding myself better. Uh so I got the OCD diagnosis,

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then the autism and uh and then later the ADHD and uh understanding that I had OCD um I was able to do um OCD

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individual therapy and they do exposure response uh therapy instead ERP and so that actually benefit a little bit. They

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also changed up my medications a little bit and so instead of trying more anti-depressants um I tried something a little bit different when I got

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diagnosed with autism. It made me kind of realize, okay, maybe this is why I’m not connecting with my therapist. Uh maybe this is why my therapists don’t understand me. Uh maybe they don’t

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understand that I can like, you know, mask. And so when I’m like really depressed and I say with a smile, I don’t necessarily mean that like I’m not like lying to you. I’m just like I’ve

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just kind of learned to pick up these behaviors where I just like very calmly and almost always mask. Yeah. And it was causing misunderstandings with your

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therapists who were trying to use your aspects as a clue to how you were doing and it wasn’t working. Yeah. Yeah.

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Exactly. And then uh and then the final thing that actually did work was getting diagnosed with ADHD. Oh. Uh so I actually got diagnosed a month ago. So it’s actually very recent. Oh wow. Okay.

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How’s it going? Actually, it’s going really well. Great. Uh, so I actually got ADHD meds uh a month ago and uh

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something about ADHD is that my ADHD was I had responded a little bit to the OCD medication but not as much and um my OCD

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therapist has suggested that I might have ADHD because part of my intrusive thoughts because OCD has like intrusive thoughts and you do and get anxious and

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you do compulsions and um so my intrusive thoughts were like they were just like happening like like constant all the So

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I had really like uh and he was like that’s kind of like they were happening so quickly. It was like my my mind was have a bunch of jump ropes. I was like

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like instead of double Dutch I was like playing like um like jump ropes with like 10 different jump ropes. And uh that’s how I kind of felt like I was

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like he kind of suggested I might have ADHD. Yeah. And uh I was like okay time to look for an evaluation. And that was

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also difficult. Uh and uh but eventually uh I did get evaluated. Uh they did uh

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say I had ADHD and with that I was able to get medication for my ADHD and actually like that almost made all the intrusive thoughts go away and that was

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like a big change. Like I like I’ve never been happier honestly than the last two months. Um, you know, after

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trying like 15 different medications before that, it was such a big change and something I wish I had gotten earlier because I, you know, I had spent

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at that point 10 years and mental health treatment with nothing that had helped, nothing and almost like nothing in the slightest. No therapy, no like

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outpatient program, no inpatient program, uh, no psychiatry, nothing had helped. And so it was really just like getting like I got the correct meds, I

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got different kinds of therapy. And also in my therapy, now that I understood I was neurody divergent, I could understand why certain things didn’t

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work for me, why maybe like I would communicate a little bit differently and I could explain myself a little bit better. I had like the language that I

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could use to kind of explain. That’s that’s wonderful. And I I have to salute your persistence. The things you

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described here are not uncommon, but the fact that you are on track to complete your masters despite them is just a testament to who you are as a person.

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Um, so you’ve had tremendous success here academically in particular and in terms of taking on leadership roles um

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in on campus as well. Now that you’re almost done, what advice do you have for students who

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might be earlier in the process? I would say community finding community has been like in addition to the medication uh I

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actually community was has been a huge help because even when during times when it was really like really rough like even when the meds weren’t working even

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when the therapy wasn’t working community really helped in terms of getting support like mutual support from people that actually understand you and

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that’s also one of the reasons why you know I started identifying as being autistic because I can relate to other autistic people and uh and I could

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relate to other people that had OCD and ADHD and I could talk to them and be like, “Oh my god, you struggle with this too. We have the exact same like story

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or the same similar story.” And that was so like it feels so warm and so empowering to be like, “Oh my god, like

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we have the same exact thing.” And it was it was like it’s so wonderful. Like I love being part of Burer Diversity

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Collective BNC. I love being part of disabled student union. Uh like I just like honestly love it so much because I

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just like love that kind of community and it’s something that I didn’t have at all. Like all these years I didn’t have

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anything like I didn’t really meet anyone who was openly autistic. I never met someone else who had OSAT OCD or

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26 minutes, 11 seconds

anyone uh like so like I just didn’t have people to talk to. Uh, and I I really it was this community that all

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26 minutes, 18 seconds

like helped bridge the like bridge the gaps where maybe medication and therapy wasn’t helping. And I’m so glad that like therapy medication is helping now,

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26 minutes, 26 seconds

but the community was really such like a huge support uh throughout all this time and still now. And uh yeah, so I mean

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even for like neurotypical people uh community can be such a big help in terms of like finding your community here at UCLA or any school or any college. Wonderful. Thank you, Jennifer.

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26 minutes, 45 seconds

Uh, I’m gonna take back the mic now and we’ll pass it to the architect of some of the community that has been so helpful for you, Ryan, to hear a little

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26 minutes, 54 seconds

update about how he’s doing. So, as Ryan promised you guys earlier, you’re going to hear from him with an update about

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27 minutes, 2 seconds

everything that’s gone down uh since he was on the podcast last year. Ryan, thank you for being instrumental in pulling this event together, for

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27 minutes, 10 seconds

hosting, and for joining me here for the update. So, let’s start with the academics. How’s it going working

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towards your major? Yeah, it’s it’s it’s going pretty good. Um, I think since we’ve spoken, I’ve started most of my

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27 minutes, 24 seconds

upper division classes. Fabulous. And what’s weird is I’ve done better in my upper divs than my lower divs, which is

27:32

27 minutes, 32 seconds

kind of the opposite of how things are supposed to go. Weird for typical typically developing students, not weird for autistic students. Almost everybody

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27 minutes, 40 seconds

I talk to says this. Okay. Because because our passion makes us more effective as students. When we are bored

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and we do not care, we do not perform particularly well.

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Absolutely. And I also think I just learned a lot more about like how my executive functioning works. Like I’m always going to have executive functioning challenges. In my freshman

28:00

28 minutes

year, I couldn’t sit down and pay attention to doing readings. This was actually before I got an ADHD diagnosis, which like Jenny really changed Yeah. my

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28 minutes, 8 seconds

life and experiences. But I also didn’t have a lot of crucial executive functioning skills. And it took three

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28 minutes, 15 seconds

years and some tutoring and body doubling executive functioning support for me to kind of start to learn and internalize those skills and just become

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28 minutes, 24 seconds

a much better student. So that’s been like really helpful. So what are the supports that are helping now? Um you said upper division is going better.

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You’ve learned. You’ve gotten the diagnosis. So what are you doing that’s working?

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28 minutes, 39 seconds

Um I think the the biggest thing that’s really helped has been I think like I said before having to body double. Oh yeah. So body doubling for those of you

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28 minutes, 48 seconds

who don’t know it’s an experience of basically having someone physically or like I suppose digitally but be present

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28 minutes, 56 seconds

with you and be working alongside of you in a way that creates accountability especially for a deadline. So, because of my executive functioning challenges,

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if I have an assignment or task that’s kind of out in the future, let’s say I have an essay that’s due in a week and it’s five pages, it’s going to be really

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hard for me to kind of generate the desperation it takes for me to do it until it’s right up against the deadline. But if I have two essays due

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29 minutes, 21 seconds

the same day, then it’s like, what am I supposed to do? Yeah, you have you can’t do them both at the last minute. The last the same minute. So, what are you the what does the body double do? So,

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what the body double does is if my essay is due on like Sunday, I’ll schedule an appointment with my body double for Thursday, we’ll have one or two hours

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scheduled on the docket. And I’m and because I’m there, I’m accountable for their time and my time and and like

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29 minutes, 45 seconds

sometimes the amount that we’d pay to have that person present, it would create a very strong sense of accountability for me to sit through and

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29 minutes, 52 seconds

get the work done. So because of that, by the time Thursday night was done, I’d actually have a draft of my essay that I never would have without the body

30:00

30 minutes

double. And what’s been cool about that is over time, like this process mostly started for me in sophomore year. By the

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time of like winter and spring quarter, I’ve started to be able to do that on my own without needing a body double to be

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30 minutes, 15 seconds

present, which I think is really cool because it’s shown that I’ve been able to internalize some of these skills over time. And it shows it’s like your like

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level of quote unquote functioning it’s it’s not fixed. It doesn’t mean that this movie doesn’t exist. Yeah. The challenge doesn’t exist, but you can get

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better at things and develop skills with support. Yeah. And I particularly because I I hear that you’re having to pay for it. That this is not an accommodation that is funded by UCLA.

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How many hours a week are you using your body double? Yeah. So yeah, like you said, this this is an accommodation that

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h is for me hasn’t been paid for by UCLA, but it’s it’s only like one to two hours a week, maybe more during finals

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30 minutes, 57 seconds

week. What’ll often be is like an hour, half hour like kind of consultation ahead of the week to like map out all my

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31 minutes, 4 seconds

assignments and tasks. Like especially now I’m I’m I’m part of clubs. I’m running BNC and NE doing all this neurodiversity advocacy. Like my

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31 minutes, 13 seconds

schedule is a nightmare. It’s like the 10 jump ropes thing. So, so one of those and then like one hour later in the week

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31 minutes, 20 seconds

for whatever assignment I have, but body doubling isn’t something that you need to necessarily pay a person for. At BNC,

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we already have uh like BNC sponsored body doubling sessions with our own students and kind of the community

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31 minutes, 35 seconds

offering as that support. Uh but we’ve also been in conversation with some folks at UCLA on seeing if that type of body doubling support or executive

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31 minutes, 43 seconds

subunction support program could be offered by like academic counseling or student mentor services. Yeah. So how is

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31 minutes, 50 seconds

that advocacy process going with the uh university administration? Have you have you made some headway? I know you already were successful in founding an

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31 minutes, 59 seconds

organization, but has it continued to go well? Yes, it 100% has. I think a big part of that’s been thanks to the Rise

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Center which has partnered with us on this event. They’re a mental health organization at UCLA. Um and they’ve been partnered with us on this thing

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called NET which is the neurodiversity empowerment team. Okay. which is kind of the administration side of neurodiversity

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advocacy that PNC was uh kind of an integral part of helpingward and we’ve had a lot of net meetings and

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32 minutes, 30 seconds

meetings with different campus partners over the last year or so with uh CAE that offers accommodations with CAPS

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mental health service with with residential life academic counseling stuff like that. Oh great so all angles of the student experience. Yeah. Yeah.

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Absolutely. We’re we’re still in the early stages of really working on making those changes. Like right now, a lot of it’s conversations, but we’ve already

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been able to advocate for improving access to mental health support. There’s the the website and intake process on the websites. Yeah. Neurodyiverent

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students, all students have said it’s over complicated and difficult to navigate. And uh we’ve had BNC’s had some meetings with CAPS and the mental

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33 minutes, 12 seconds

health team and they’ve been able to use some of those that information to recommend changes to those services. So

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it’s yeah kind of small humble change but um so Brian just to wrap it up can you give us a snapshot of how things are

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going at Bruin Neurodiversity Collective? Is this membership growing? How’s it going? It’s going really well.

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I think this these last two quarters especially, we’ve had really good turnout at at our events, usually between 10 and 15, which y for group of

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33 minutes, 40 seconds

people that tends to have executive functioning challenges, including myself, that’s that’s no small feat. Um, our our Discord server, which is kind of

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the main community uh based server, we’ve we’ve gained uh I think at least like 75 since we’ve last spoken. Yeah.

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and like maybe like 30 or so who are actively using it in a given month.

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That’s fabulous. Um and this is without having done any real like proper advertising especially to freshmen because again executive function. Yeah,

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I was going to say is it the executive function perhaps? But you you know Yeah.

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Okay. Um so congratulations Ryan and congratulations BNC members in the audience. Um, and I think we’re gonna uh kind of throw to intermission here.