This guest post is by Andres Castillo, a young man on the autism spectrum who was diagnosed with autism at age 3 and has been accepted into University of Central Florida. Andres is applying for the Spring 2022 Making a Difference Autism Scholarship via the nonprofit KFM Making a Difference started by me, Kerry Magro. I was nonverbal till 2.5 and diagnosed with autism at 4 and you can read more about my organization here. Autistics on Autism: Stories You Need to Hear About What Helped Them While Growing Up and Pursuing Their Dreams, our nonprofit’s new book, was released on March 29, 2022 on Amazon here for our community to enjoy featuring the stories of 100 autistic adults.
I grew up with my family from Puerto Rico on my mom’s side and my stepfamily from Colombia on my stepdad’s side. However, I am just my other siblings on my biological dad’s side of the family. This past summer, I just met my two younger sisters who were born in the 21st century. In 2016, I just met my two little sisters who are on my biological dad’s side of the family as well. It was during the Winter.
Also, I finally get to see my boy cousins on my bioloigical dad’s side of the family back in Puerto Rico. I am Ortiz from the bottom of my stepfamily’s heart. I am so excited to be receiving my AA degree this year in the Fall of 2022. I’m thankful to God. I used to not feel belonged, but right now I do.
I graduated from grade school in a special education program. I took a small bus throughout my school in the states. However, I rode a big bus with my younger brother in Puerto Rico. I went to Boy Scouts with special needs students in sixth grade. After Thanksgiving, I got out because it was not for me. I was on a soccer team in the summer before going to fifth grade, but I decided to quit because I was a little hard on myself for not being capable of playing soccer. It is not because of my autism. In seventh through ninth grade, I was a member of the Boys and Girls Club.
In tenth grade, I was a member of the Spanish club. In eleventh grade, I was working at the main office with my one-on-one assistant as an Administrative Volunteer for shredded papers in the machine. In my senior year of high school, I was a member of the National Honor Society. I graduated from high school with a general education diploma. I have been studying at a community college for 6 years. The next fall semester in 2023, will be my first time going to university. When I got back to campus this past fall semester, I finally got to take two courses as a part-time student.
This semester, I am taking a journalism course that is related to face-to-face to be part of an internship for communication. Once I pass my journalism course, I will be having internship interviews before the employers hire me. In that way, people from Career Center will put me into a program of communication to get my credits for an elective.
In this upcoming Fall semester, I will be taking a mass media communication course because it is required for my journalism major at the University of Central Florida. When I was in my third year as a freshman student at a community college, I was in the Math Honor Society for being a member of the math club for two years in May 2019.
My educational goals are to earn my associate’s degree in general studies, and my bachelor’s degree in communication or journalism. Sooner or later, once I have my bachelor’s degree in journalism, I will be working on my master’s degree in creative writing at the age of 30. My career goals are being an actor, writing my songs in Spanish, news reports, broadcasts, TV hosts, and being an author. The reason I want to sing and write my songs is that I want to work on the television and I want to be someone in life in the industry of music.
Additionally, it helps me to travel all over the world. I will get to meet new people in every place and visit many countries. It is my dream to be famous. In my high school years, I did not have an income due to my autism and I had to move to every state because of my dad’s job in the armed forces. I could not take a chance to make money because I had to focus on my education in eight different states and one Hispanic country. I had been through many changes at school due to my moving experiences and some of my challenges with autism.
However, my autism has not stopped me from having a better education and my parents always taught me that is okay to be different, and to achieve and work for my dreams. I will be going to NL Acting Studio and School of Music to learn about a job in the music and acting industry to earn my training in the music and acting industry next year in the spring or summer.
Hopefully, this summer or next semester I will find a way to get a job. If I can earn the money from a scholarship to pay for my tuition, that will help me to go up one more step to obtain my education and graduate from Valencia College. We have recently lived in the state of Florida for two years, and that has been difficult to secure money to pay for my tuition and the books that I will need for my courses. All my expectations are on the scholarships to be able to achieve my goals and dreams to show the world that people with conditions or without conditions can be successful in life.
Follow my journey on Facebook, my Facebook Fan Page, Tiktok, Youtube & Instagram,
My name is Kerry Magro, a professional speaker and best-selling author who is also on the autism spectrum that started the nonprofit KFM Making a Difference in 2011 to help students with autism receive scholarship aid to pursue post-secondary education. Help support me so I can continue to help students with autism go to college by making a tax-deductible donation to our nonprofit here.
Autistics on Autism: Stories You Need to Hear About What Helped Them While Growing Up and Pursuing Their Dreams, will be released on March 29, 2022 on Amazon here for our community to enjoy featuring the stories of 100 autistic adults. 100% of the proceeds from this book will go back to our nonprofit to support initiatives like our autism scholarship program. In addition, this autistic adult’s essay you just read will be featured in a future volume of this book as we plan on making this into a series of books on autistic adults.
