When Joshua Corwin PZ ’19 was a student at Pitzer, he once got a 13 out of 100 on a midterm. At first, he felt terrible. Now, six years after graduation, he’s back on campus — and he’s got a whole new attitude about failure.
On Wednesday, Oct. 22, the Pitzer College Career Services and the Chronically Ill and Disabled Student Alliance (CIDSA) hosted Corwin for a talk on his experiences as a neurodiverse person in the working world. Titled “Disability Advocacy in the Workplace,” students gathered for Corwin’s talk at 4 p.m. in Skandera Hall.
As Career Fellow Nikai Mackie PZ ’26 was searching for speakers for this semester’s collaborative event, she stumbled upon Corwin’s profile in Pitzer’s alumni network.
As they prepare to enter the workforce post-grad, Mackie explained that they thought it could be beneficial for students to hear about Corwin’s experiences navigating his disability in different professional settings.
“I just appreciated [Corwin’s talk] because [being disabled in the workplace is] something I worry about after I graduate, just hoping that I find a place that acknowledges me for all the intersections that I come with,” Mackie said.
During his time at Pitzer, Corwin studied math and philosophy. Since graduating, he has been a recipient of the Spillwords Press Publication of the Month award and a Pushcart Prize-nominated poet. In his debut poetry collection “Becoming Vulnerable,” Corwin shines a light on his experiences with autism and addiction. He’s also been active in disability advocacy circles and has partnered with the nonprofit The Miracle Project to teach poetry to neurodiverse people.
Corwin began his talk by discussing his academic journey at Pitzer, highlighting many of the struggles he faced as an autistic student. During one particular midterm, he explained, he failed miserably despite having thoroughly studied the material.
“I remember feeling like I was studying for my goddamn life to do really well on an exam, and then I [got] 13 out of 100 … the worst I’ve ever done,” Corwin said. “I thought, ‘Oh my God, my life is over. It’s a test that I failed, and I’m a terrible person, and I’m so bad and all this stuff.’ [But that] ended up being one of the best things that ever could have happened to me.”
Despite initially feeling discouraged, failing his midterm ultimately pushed Corwin to want to understand himself better and reflect on the ways his brain functioned differently from other students.
“I feel like one of the reasons I messed up that exam is [because] a lot of the stuff was multiple choice,” Corwin said. “The way my mind works, I don’t do well with that. I would do better if you give me something to write an essay on.”
Initially, Corwin explained that his academic failures discouraged him greatly. Over time, however, he grew to see them as opportunities to learn more about himself.
“I found that usually what I’ve thought is the worst things that happened to me end up being the best things that happen to me if I shift the perspective,” Corwin said. “It requires you to kind of understand what’s going on and who you are, how you embody, how you inhabit the world.”
As a result of his disability, Corwin faced workplace discrimination at his first job out of college. Despite explaining to his employer that he was autistic, he described how he was eventually fired due to his boss’s unwillingness to understand him.
Corwin would face further discrimination at one of the graduate programs he attended. Despite once again explaining his disability to his peers, he was eventually asked to leave due to complaints filed against him. In response, Corwin applied to other programs and was accepted at Antioch University Los Angeles.
In his descriptions of his struggles, Corwin emphasized how these incidents ultimately pushed him to redefine the language he uses to describe his neurodiversity.
“And I could have been like — ‘life is difficult, blah, blah, blah, whatever. I don’t like it, this is hard,’” Corwin said. “It was during that shift that I went from like, ‘I have autism,’ to ‘I am autistic,’ and identifying with that language.”
By reorienting his conception of his disability, Corwin was able to recognize disabling environments and continue demanding accessibility in the workplace. CIDSA co-president Miller Simon PZ ’26 resonated with Corwin’s experience of being mistreated, and felt inspired by his determination and persistence in his post-grad journey.
“Being disabled, you’re not always going to find people who are willing to work with you,” Simon said. “But that doesn’t mean that you have to sacrifice your values in order to fit into those spaces.”
As students exited the event, many noted that Corwin’s talk motivated them to seek out opportunities where they’d be accepted and celebrated for their disabilities or neurodiversity.
“You can leave and find communities that better suit you and your needs if you have the resources to advocate for yourself,” Simon said. “If you don’t have those resources, there are ways to find community and to find the networks and the support that you need to have a job as a disabled person that both sees you as you and is fulfilling for you.”
CIDSA meets weekly every Friday at 3 p.m. at Atherton Hall and welcomes students with all kinds of disabilities.
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