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Special Needs
skittles_123
member
Just had an ah ha moment.
skittles_123
member
So my other job besides being a special needs mom, is a career counselor for a large state university. I only service business students from the business college, which is huge and keeps me busy. I have a background in HR as well. My ds, if he choses, can attend my university for free because I work here.
It is my goal, if he does choose to attend this university, that I will help him through the challenges he will face through my own resources and people that I know. More importantly, as a career counselor, only with his approval, will I become an advocate for him when he searches for a job, as I know so many people out there already, especially HR people.
Hello, why can't I do this now? I called the disability resource center yesterday and the university does have 5 students with Aspergers, 4 of which are in the engineering school (not too suprising, huh?), and they would absolutely love my assistance, but it may be a challenge to get these students to come see me.
But, maybe if they know my background, they may be more apt, huh? And the fact that my own husband graduated from this engineering school, and my mom use to work at this same engineering school in the internship area, and I know people there. All of our engineering students have to do internships, and hello, that means interviewing. I am so psyched about this, I just cannot believe I never thought about doing this before.
It would strictly be volunteer and on my own time, but 5 students, I think I can handle that :0).
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Just had an ah ha moment.
Max 4-08-08 and Michael 2-03-91 (19 years olds)
I actually ran a career office at a small college here in Boston before having the girls... the last conference I attended was career counseling for students with disabilities... it was really interesting and informative, but I chuckle now b/c I vividly remember thinking, "too bad I won't be able to use this information!" HA!
Anyway, I think that's a GREAT idea!
This is something that the lady I spoke with mentioned. So I am aware of this. Her one non-engineering, sports admin student, she said is probably the one most likely to take advantage of any resources he can get his hands on (probably the most social of the bunch, I am guessing). And I find it hard to believe that only 5 students on campus have been identified. I am sure there are more, especially with 25K students, they just rather not identify themselves for various reasons that you mentioned before auntie. At my university, they do offer accomodations to these students.
I know that me having a toddler with asd, will not make them more likely to see me, but the fact that I am much more in touch with the autism community than the average person. I do have connections at the engineering school, I know people there, they know me, they know my dh. I just want them to know I am here if they need me.
I think I am emotionally ready to take on the differences that a college age Aspergers person presents. I have always been a more accepting, non-judgemental, easy-going person in my job, differences people present, even the scary or more odd ones, do not bother me too much. Heck in my HR roll previous to this job, I interviewed some pretty rough, odd folks (convicted of murders, or people that were suspects and eventually convicted in high profile murder cases AFTER I interviewed them, don't ask me why they weren't in jail, yikes!, etc).