Dream Careers: Inside the Minds of Georgia State’s IDEAL Students ~ 1342

Tim Villegas: It’s a Thursday morning in downtown Atlanta, in a classroom at Georgia State University. I’m in a careers class, and the instructor has handed me the floor, and I’ve got one question for the entire classroom. What’s your dream career?

Ananda: My name’s Ananda. My major is veterinarian. When I’m done with this program, I’d like to work at veterinarian clinics or animal hospitals. And if I have a change of heart, I’ll probably work at an office.

Jordyn: My name is Jordyn, and my dream is to have my own business — have a store and sell pajamas. But after I’m done with this program, I am going to go into the airport, being a flight attendant.

Hayden: My name is Hayden, and my dream career is just making music. Traveling the world and making music.

Isaiah: Hello, my name is Isaiah. What I plan to do after school is to become an actor one day. That’s the one thing I’ve always wanted to do since I was like eight years old.

Jace: Hi, my name is Jace, and my dream job is to become a film director and a film producer. I just have a passion for film projects. I grew up watching a lot of films. After I graduate, hopefully someday I’ll just work in that film department, you know, making money, doing well financially and successfully.

Brian: Hello. My name is Brian Markison. I know you said last names aren’t required, but I just felt like giving it to you anyway. Anyway, my dream job at this point is to become a podcaster, and if that doesn’t go through, I want to work with animals.

David: My name is David. My dream job after college, if I’m lucky, I’d like to be a comic book writer and create my own stories that I’ve thought of since I was in high school. And I want to sort of just tell things from my perspective and how I view the world and such.

Hunter: Hey, my name is Hunter, and my main goal is to become a famous 3D animator YouTuber and create my own anime films without the use of AI — and, almost similar to what David said, create my own stories and bring some positivity to the world.

Tim Villegas: A veterinarian, a flight attendant with her own pajama company, musician, actor, YouTuber, podcaster, comic book writer.

These are students in the IDEAL program at Georgia State University — IDEAL, as in Inclusive Digital Expression and Literacy. It’s a college program for students with intellectual disabilities, built around creative media, in the heart of one of the biggest cities in the South. Every student you just heard commutes into downtown Atlanta.

This was my first visit, and it was a short one, but I left with one idea rattling around my head, courtesy of the program’s newest staff member. It’s about what stands between a dream like the ones you just heard and a job. And it starts, of all places, with a checkbox.

I’m Tim Villegas, and you’re listening to Think Inclusive, MCIE’s podcast about building schools — and workplaces — where every learner belongs. This is episode three of our four-part series in collaboration with Think College. I’m so glad you’re here. After a quick break: the box, and the man who spent his whole career refusing to let it have the last word.

Today’s episode is brought to you by Think College, the leading national center dedicated to expanding real college options for students with intellectual disability. Think College offers resources, training, and hands-on technical assistance for families, educators, and programs across the country. They also manage the only national directory of college programs for students with intellectual disability, making it easier than ever to explore what’s possible. With a commitment to equity and evidence-based practice, Think College is helping campuses evolve, shaping policy, and elevating student voices. Learn more at thinkcollege.net. Again, that’s thinkcollege.net.

Every inclusive college program in this series has an origin story. At IDEAL, I want to start somewhere a little different — with a staff member who, when I visited, had only been on the job for about five months.

Mykal Tairu: My name is Mykal Tairu, and I am the employment coordinator for the IDEAL program at Georgia State University.

Tim Villegas: Mykal — he’ll tell you to just call him Mike — started at IDEAL in March of 2025. But the road that got him there is the reason this episode exists. He grew up in Prince George’s County, Maryland. College at Bethune-Cookman, an HBCU in Daytona Beach. Grad school at Yale. And then a career that kept circling one idea from every possible angle: who gets a fair shot at work? Job coach, employment specialist, and before that, an employer himself.

Mykal Tairu: When I was in Florida, I was an employer myself, and so I worked with folks who not only had disabilities but also records. And so my thing was ensuring individuals who have past criminal convictions had opportunities to get a job, right?

Tim Villegas: And just before that, fresh out of grad school, he was a community organizer working on criminal justice reform. One policy in particular.

Mykal Tairu: We focused on a policy called Ban the Box. Long story short: somebody applies for a job, it says, “Have you ever been convicted of a record?” They check yes. The application goes in the trash. And so we were like, “Hey, at least let the applicant have the opportunity to introduce themselves, present themselves, before being immediately disqualified based on the stigma of a criminal record.” So the dignity of work was always important for me.

Tim Villegas: I’d just like for you to sit with that for a second. A checked box. An application that goes directly into the trash. Not because of what the person can do — nobody ever found out what the person can do. Disqualified before they were even introduced.

Now think about the students you heard at the top of this episode. For adults with intellectual disabilities in this country, the box isn’t necessarily printed on the application, but it’s in the room before the interview even starts. It’s the pause after the word “disability.” Different stigma, but same trash can. Mike’s whole career has been one long argument that the introduction should come first, and it turns out he’s really good at making that argument.

Mykal Tairu: That was just kind of where the doors opened for me. I was good at it. I was good at working with employers and connecting the job seeker to the employer’s need. That was my thing. And so this is my first rodeo in higher ed doing employment work.

Tim Villegas: So what does “the introduction comes first” look like as an actual job at a university? At IDEAL, it looks like this: the program partners with GVRA, Georgia’s Vocational Rehabilitation Agency, to do something called customized employment. Instead of squeezing a graduate into a job description written for somebody else, they work with an employer to build the position around the person’s strengths. When I was visiting, Mike was in the middle of doing exactly that with a local marketing agency for a recent graduate named Justin Gold.

Mykal Tairu: So now we have the opportunity to work with employers. We partner with GVRA to work with employers to customize positions for some of our graduates. And I have the great opportunity to work with a local marketing agency that is essentially giving us the freedom and control to customize a position for one of our graduates, Justin Gold. And Justin is, I mean, ecstatic about the opportunity, and the employer is ecstatic about the opportunity. And it’s not being seen as, “Oh, we’re doing Justin a solid.”

Tim Villegas: And that phrase — doing Justin a solid — is the thing Mykal wants to take off the table entirely. I’ll let him explain.

Mykal Tairu: They’re really interested in ensuring that Justin comes into their firm and contributes, right? That he’ll come and contribute to their operation. And so that’s a story that comes to mind first, because it’s something that’s literally cooking right now. But also seeing people like Isaiah work. He has a job — and obviously he’ll tell more about this — he has a job, and for him to say, “This is my dream job. I enjoy this.” And the employers say the same: “He comes here, he does what he’s supposed to do. He does well.” It’s not a charity case. It’s a case where somebody understands that this individual brings value into our workplace, and we need him. You know what I mean? And so those are stories that come to mind. It’s like, yeah, this is important work, this is good work, and this is necessary work.

Tim Villegas: It’s not a charity case. Oh my gosh, I love that. It reminds me of something we talk about when we are explaining inclusive education. Inclusion isn’t just a nice thing to do. It is not about charity. It is about seeing the value of every human being and every learner and every student. And for Mykal and for Justin, it means that someone understands that this person brings value into the workplace.

Now, the Isaiah he’s talking about — you’ve met him. The actor, from the classroom earlier. After the break, I spend a morning with Isaiah and with David, the comic book writer. Because if you want to know what students will pay for a college like this — not in tuition and effort — ask them about their commute.

This episode is brought to you by Think Higher, Think College, a national public awareness campaign changing expectations for what’s possible after high school for students with intellectual disability. This campaign asks a simple but powerful question: What if every young adult with intellectual disability saw college as an option? Think Higher, Think College shares resources for families, educators, and higher ed leaders, highlights the real benefits of inclusive college programs, and offers tools to help spread the message that college is possible. With more than 300 programs across 49 states and thousands of students already enrolled, the movement is growing. Learn more and get involved at thinkhighered.net. Again, that’s thinkhighered.net.

Remember, IDEAL is a commuter program. There’s no dorm at the end of this story like Davis or College Park. Every one of these students crosses metro Atlanta, one of the most sprawling, traffic-choked regions in America. Isaiah lives in Lawrenceville, which is in Gwinnett County, northeast of Atlanta. Here’s his morning.

Isaiah: So I wake up at around 6:30 a.m., brush my teeth, get dressed, and then I go out and get my first bus, and I take that to Sugarloaf Mills, get off there, and then get on the express bus. And it’ll take maybe about an hour to get from there to downtown.

Tim Villegas: That’s just the trip in. Now, the other end of the day.

Isaiah: First class 2:15 to 3:30, and then my next class is from 3:45 to 5:00, and that’s pretty much my day.

Tim Villegas: And then you head back home on the bus? So what time do you get home?

Isaiah: If I’m coming from school, I tend to get home around 8 o’clock. I have a really long commute. I live in Lawrenceville, so it’s a really long commute.

Tim Villegas: It’s a long commute.

Isaiah: Yeah, it’s a long commute.

Tim Villegas: Up at 6:30, home at 8:00. That’s roughly a 13-hour day, bracketed by three hours of buses — for college. And here’s why I’m telling you this: nobody rides three hours of buses a day for a favor someone is doing them. You do that for a life you want. And David wants it too. He comes in from Lithonia, on the east side, using MARTA Mobility, the paratransit service.

David: Well, this is the thing, right? I take MARTA Mobility, and I have to schedule rides in advance, so I can’t just do a same-day trip, for example, and I can’t change the time of a same-day trip. So I have to either call them or go on their website and set up my ride for the next day. I’m not that far from here. I’m in Lithonia, so I’m close to 30 minutes away. Well, 30 minutes on a good day, if traffic’s not crazy.

Tim Villegas: Every ride scheduled a day in advance. No spontaneity or same-day changes. That is the logistics tax a lot of people with disabilities pay just to show up. And then he gets to campus. Listen to what the campus is to him.

David: If I get here early enough, I like to walk around the green space. I like walking around campuses in general. It’s really just satisfying and calming, and it’s one of those things where I feel sort of at home when I’m at school. I have a peer mentor that sort of goes with me to work. They’ll be there if I need their help, but my job isn’t necessarily difficult, so I don’t necessarily need them — but I do appreciate the support.

Tim Villegas: What’s your job?

David: I have a front desk job in the film department at 25 Park Place.

Tim Villegas: A real job in the film department — which, for a comic book writer who wants to tell stories from his own perspective, is not a random placement. And a peer mentor nearby if he needs one. IDEAL students are supported by a network of Georgia State undergrads, about 50 peer mentors strong, plus an academic coordinator and two employment coordinators. Support that’s there and then gets out of the way. The whole campus, in miniature, doing what that marketing agency did for Justin.

I asked Isaiah and David what their time at IDEAL has meant. Isaiah’s answer covers more ground than most college stories. He started back in 2018. And then, you know, 2020 happened.

Isaiah: Well, I will say that I’ve been coming here for a pretty long time. And so I feel like I’m at a point now where I can kind of say, yeah, this is probably that step that I need to kind of further into my life, I guess. Because I was here originally back in 2018, 2019, and then COVID happened. So I didn’t get that proper ending, I guess.

Tim Villegas: But you feel like you have the skills to take the next step? Is that what I’m hearing?

Isaiah: Yeah.

David: To go from what Isaiah said — I’ve been here not as long as Isaiah, but I did come like three or so years after him. I’ve seen things change and evolve, and it’s a nice experience. It’s a different experience. I’ve been sort of to college before — that was a whole other sort of thing. But ever since coming to GSU, I feel like things have sort of improved, despite, you know, the good, the bad, and the ugly. No matter what, I sort of just enjoy coming here, and it feels like a breath of fresh air, coming downtown, even if the traffic can be a little stressing.

Tim Villegas: Guys, thank you so much for your time.

David: Yeah, it’s no problem.

Tim Villegas: One more thing before I let you go. When I asked Mykal what he wished more people knew about IDEAL, he didn’t talk about employment at all. He talked about who’s in the room.

Mykal Tairu: I love that this program is committed to bringing in students, right? Our population looks like the city, right? And I think that — you know, being very picky about my words — this space can look a certain way, right, with the demographics. And I love that the IDEAL program is committed to ensuring that this is a diverse space. Not just in disability, but a diverse space ethnically, racially. And so I love that about the IDEAL program.

Tim Villegas: We were sitting near a bookshelf, and he nodded at a book — Black Disability Politics by Sami Schalk — and then he said this.

Mykal Tairu: Navigating the world as a person with a disability is one thing, but navigating America as a person with a disability who happens to be a person of color is another thing, right? And so I love that the IDEAL program is supporting individuals who have disabilities, but also individuals from different racial backgrounds. So I love that about this space.

Tim Villegas: Navigating the world with a disability is one thing. Navigating America with a disability as a person of color is another. And here’s a program in the middle of Atlanta whose student body looks like Atlanta, and whose whole theory of employment is Mykal’s old Ban the Box argument, transplanted: let the person introduce themselves before the world decides what they can’t do.

Because you heard the introductions, right? Dreams of being a veterinarian, a flight attendant, a musician, an actor, a comic book writer telling stories from their own perspective. Nobody in that classroom is asking for a favor. They’re asking for an interview.

Before I left, I was showing David how to record himself on his phone. His very first test recording was twelve words long.

David: My name is David Langford, and I go to Georgia State University.

Tim Villegas: Thanks for listening to episode three of our Think College podcast series. This podcast is a proud production of the Maryland Coalition for Inclusive Education in partnership with Think College at the University of Massachusetts Boston. If you’d like to learn more about the IDEAL program, visit cld.gsu.edu/ideal. That’s the Center for Leadership in Disability at Georgia State. And to explore inclusive college programs across the country, including the only national directory of them, visit thinkcollege.net.

Next time on Think Inclusive: Meg Grigal and Clare Papay explain how inclusive college pathways are opening real opportunities for students with intellectual disabilities.

I’m Tim Villegas. Thanks for listening.