What Changed Everything: How the Right Support at University Can Transform a Neurodivergent Life

When people look at my work now — as the founder of Divergent Thinking, a speaker, consultant and advocate for neuroinclusion — it can be easy to assume the path was always obvious in hindsight.

It was not.

One of the reasons my Bournemouth University alumni profile still means so much to me is that it captures a turning point rather than just an outcome. It shows the stage of my life where persistence met practical support, and where the story began to shift from “Can he cope?” to “What might be possible if he is properly supported?”

You can read the original profile here: Nathaniel Hawley – Director of the Dyslexia Employment Academy | Bournemouth University

This is not really a story about talent alone

I think one of the biggest myths around success is that it is mostly about inner drive.

Drive matters, of course. Persistence matters too. I needed both. But when I look back on that stage of my life, what stands out just as strongly is that I was finally in an environment that did not only measure me by the things I found hardest.

That changed everything.

Before university, so much of my experience of education had been shaped by the language of limitation. I had spent years in the “bottom set”, years being underestimated, years in systems where my dyslexia and dyspraxia were more visible than my potential. The assumption was often that if I struggled in the standard format, the problem was me.

Bournemouth University helped interrupt that story.

Not by lowering the bar. Not by pretending the difficulties did not exist. But by offering support that made the playing field fairer.

The first lesson: potential is often hidden by format

One of the most important things I learnt is that intelligence and ability do not always show up in the format a system prefers.

For me, traditional school structures had often made it look as though I was less capable than I really was. But the truth was more complicated. I was struggling with the format, not lacking the potential.

That distinction is huge.

It is the difference between:

• “This person is not capable” and

• “This person is capable, but the current method is not allowing that to show.”

At Bournemouth University, particularly in Television Production, I started to experience what it felt like when learning connected more naturally with how I thought. Creative work, storytelling, media, ideas in motion — all of that gave me a different way to demonstrate what I could do.

That was not a minor improvement. It was a reintroduction to myself.

Why support mattered so much

When I speak about Bournemouth University now, I do not only speak about getting in. I speak about what happened once I was there.

The support I received was not decorative. It was not an optional extra. It was essential.

I often describe it as a kind of two-layered support system:

• general neurodivergence support through Additional Learning Support

• subject-specific support through the Faculty of Media & Communication

That combination mattered because my needs did not sit in one box. I needed help with spelling, grammar, organisation and study systems, yes. But I also needed support that understood the actual academic and creative demands of the course I was doing.

That is what made the support feel real.

Too often, institutions provide either very generic disability support or very content-focused academic support, but not the bridge between the two. What helped me was having both.

The difference between coping and actually progressing

A lot of neurodivergent people become very good at coping.

We learn to compensate. Mask. Overwork. Find hacks. Stay up late. Push through. Pretend we are fine. That can get you a certain distance. But coping is not the same as flourishing.

What Bournemouth University gave me was not just a chance to survive the course. It gave me a chance to genuinely develop.

That distinction matters.

Because when support is good, the question stops being:

“How do we get this student through?”

and becomes:

“How do we help this student thrive?”

That is a much more ambitious and much more respectful question.

Assistive tools did not make things easier — they made things fairer

I think this is an important point that people still misunderstand.

When neurodivergent students receive equipment, mentoring or specialist support, some people still see that as an advantage or a form of extra help beyond what is fair. I see it very differently.

For me, the tools I received through support funding did not make university “easy”. They made it possible to compete more fairly. They reduced the drag. They allowed me to spend more energy on the thinking, creativity and content, rather than burning it all trying to force myself through systems that were never neutral in the first place.

That lesson has stayed with me ever since.

It is also exactly why I now care so much about workplace needs assessments. In both education and employment, people often assume the barrier is the person. Very often, the barrier is the mismatch between the person and the way the environment has been designed.

This was where advocacy really began

Another reason this Bournemouth University chapter matters is that it was not only where I grew academically. It was where my sense of purpose began to take shape.

As a Student Ambassador and through outreach work with local schools, I started to see that my experience was not just personal. There was a pattern. So many other neurodivergent young people were facing the same dynamic:

• being underestimated

• being flattened by labels

• having strengths hidden by standard systems

• being told to adapt to environments that had no intention of adapting to them

That was the beginning of something for me.

It was where the seeds of Divergent Thinking were planted, even if I did not have the full language for it yet. I could already sense that I did not just want to “make it through” for myself. I wanted to challenge the structures that were still making life unnecessarily difficult for so many others.

Why this story matters beyond my own life

What I find most meaningful about this alumni story now is that it is not just about me going from “bottom set” to a Master’s degree and a career.

It is about what institutions can become when they stop treating neurodivergence as an inconvenience and start taking support seriously.

It is about the fact that potential is often far more widely distributed than opportunity.

It is about how many people might thrive if they were given better conditions.

It is about what changes when a person is not constantly being asked to prove they deserve support before they have even had a fair chance to show what they can do.

That is why I do not read this story now as a simple triumph over adversity. I read it as evidence.

Evidence that support matters.

Evidence that environment matters.

Evidence that when a person is given the right tools, the story can change dramatically.

The business lesson began here too

Looking back, I can also see that Bournemouth University shaped how I now speak to employers.

The message I bring into organisations today — that neurodiversity is not a charity issue or a box-ticking exercise, but a question of talent, role fit and systems design — did not come only from theory. It came from lived experience.

I know what it feels like to be measured narrowly.

I know what it feels like when support changes what is possible.

And I know how much talent gets missed when people are judged only through what they find hardest.

That is why the work I do now through Divergent Thinking is so focused on practical change. Better support, better design, better understanding, better systems. Not because it sounds good, but because I know personally what a difference it can make.

A different way of understanding success

I think this is the perspective I have most now when I look back on that Bournemouth chapter.

Success was not simply getting in.

It was not simply graduating.

It was not even simply going on to achieve things afterwards.

Success was the moment I stopped being read only through deficit.

The moment a system finally gave me enough support that my strengths had room to show up properly.

The moment I could begin building a life around how my brain worked, rather than constantly apologising for it.

That is a very different kind of success from the one people usually celebrate. But to me, it is the more important one.

Final reflection

If my Bournemouth University story says anything, I hope it says this:

When a neurodivergent person is given the right tools, the right support and the right environment, the question is no longer whether they can survive the system. The question becomes how far they might go once the system stops getting in their way.

That, to me, is the real lesson.

Not that I was exceptional for making it through.

But that far more people could do remarkable things if they were properly supported in the first place.

To explore more of my work as the founder of Divergent Thinking, visit the blog or learn more about workplace needs assessments.