College can be a difficult transition for any student, and for students with autism it can present even more challenges. Most students with autism require some extra support with their classwork, which can be difficult in standard programs.
Milwaukee Area Technical College wanted to help students with autism navigate through college more easily, so they created the Uniquely Abled Academy — a program inside of the college specifically created with autistic students in mind.
Terry Wezyk, machine tool instructor who works with the program, and Ethan Tutaj-Blaz, a student in the program working toward a degree in tool and dye, share more.
"The Uniquely Abled Academy was set up to encourage a highly-functioning autistic people to come in and get trained in our machine tool area as a starting point to help them be successful in the job field. The machine tool area is an area where they would be able to excel, and we thought it was a great opportunity for the students to come in and give it a try," Wezyk explains.
A career that can come out of this program is in manufacturing, particular ones based in machine shops that have computerized numerical control machines that are semiautomated.
Wezyk says the program is geared to help students get familiar with the machines and get some industry experience manufacturing parts right away.
As a student in the program, Tutaj-Blaz says the curriculum allows for enough time for the information to be soaked up and then understand why they're doing a certain procedure and how they're doing it.
"Going to trade school offered me much less of the classes I knew I would do much worse in, and I would make college much more tolerable. So when we heard about this program, I like working with my hands, I'm strong in math, it seems like a great fit to kind of get into a field that I could get a job and not sit around at home all day," he says.
