Aspies For Freedom

Yes, but really think about what this means... I wanted to go to grad school and become a researcher. I majored in Electrical Engineering in Dallas, where there's lots of EE stuff (such as Texas Instruments). Not a good match at all, because the university I went to basically had the BSc in EE to prepare people to enter those local industries, whereas I wanted to go to grad school to do research kind of stuff. Also, the advisors and such in the EE department were horrible, super bureaucratic etc. I ended up switching majors and then dropping out for a wide variety of reasons, but I think I'd have been better off at a different university that didn't focus as much on making good workers for the local industry.

Not only do I think college is important but education is important I know many college grads who are one step above a 13 yr old.  Somehow they get through the system managing to avoid learning.

KNowledge is power... learn to learn for the rest of your life.

Wise man once said  "Live each day likes its your last, Learn each day as if you will live forever."
My family follows this path.

I am litterally shocked at the lack of education of so many aspies of this generation and my generation. I can see my parents generation, because education was for the rich primarily.. There is no excuse today.

Shocked at the lack of education or the lack of degrees to show for that education, or both? I don't have any higher degree than my highschool diploma, but I'm not particularly lacking in education... I'm better educated than most college grads. Of course, finding a job without a degree to prove that is not going to be easy, but I'm currently not looking for a job anyway, and I doubt I will anytime soon considering I've got a son to raise. Plus, my lack of a driver's license is a larger impediment to finding a job than my lack of a BSc...

I totally agree and so does my aspie best friend from my childhood all the way through college..  I did great in Grad school..  Follow your Passion!!!!   She, my NT husband, and I  agree.

Problem is, I brought myself to that meltdown while in college... not sure where to go from there. I know I've got a tendency to try to do too much, and then other people tend to strengthen that tendency in me... it's nice that people like my parents and inlaws believe in me but not when they're pushing too hard... one of the things that totally did me in btw was my scholarship... tons of money but with the requirement that I should finish a certain number of hours per semester with a certain GPA. Several times I've been wanting to start a semester with only 9 or 12 hours but didn't do it because I didn't want to risk losing the scholarship (it really was a lot of money), and then ended up burnt out at some point during the semester. I finally lost my scholarship permanently this last semester, so in a sense that's good. Now I'm not sure what to do with the future though... on the one hand I kinda want to take 6 hours this fall, but that's $2200 that we don't have for a degree that will still take 60 hours to complete and that I don't know when I'll use because we've got a baby to raise. Also, it's really recent that I've decided that I want to go finish my degree... for the past 11 months or so I've been saying that I don't care about my degree anymore, that I want to just be a housewife instead... and I was really happy being a housewife for a little while until I got wrapped up in buying a house which caused a lot of stress, and is still causing a bunch of stress...

On the one hand I just want everything to get peaceful and non-stressed out again, on the other hand I've seriously been brainwashed into believing that I want a college degree. :sigh:

I know... I'm foreign and they ARE things that I had in highschool... too bad it doesn't transfer though. Before I came to the US I was two years removed from having a BSc... now after 2.5 years of college in the US, I'm again two years removed from having a BSc... My old classmates got their BSc a year ago... Slightly over half of the classes I still have to take to get my BSc are stuff such as Rhetoric, Bio I, Bio II, Chem I, Chem II, Art Appreciation, Hist II... stuff I had in highschool. I already have taken a whole bunch of upper division classes in my major... some classes that have the aforementioned classes as 'prereqs'... it's really quite silly. I've had Organic Chemistry, Biochemistry, Cellular Biology, Behavioral Neuroscience, Integrative Neuroscience, Neuroanatomy, Neuroscience Lab Methods, etc... The way they teach most of those introductory classes though is a pain in itself... almost all professors treat you like you're in middle school (compulsory attendance, lots of hand-in homework, general way of talking to students)... even though some of the people teaching the classes are my age... The problem is that just the thought of those classes gives me a nervous breakdown.

Like I said, I'm not so sure when I'd want to get a job anyway... plus I never intended to just get a BSc... grad school sounds like a lot more fun and for any decent job you need to go to grad school anyway. Obviously, you need a BSc before you can go to grad school... but with the amount of money it would cost and the number of years it would take it just really doesn't sound appealing at all at the moment. Most jobs are pretty much fulltime jobs only, and I just can't see myself doing a fulltime job anytime soon. That's one of the reasons I was considering doing HVAC last winter... because it can much more easily be done parttime.

I guess this might sound like me whining but I'm really trying to figure out what'd be best considering that I've burnt out several times before in college... not just once. I like my major... I just hate undergradschool! It's too much like middle school. I know that on the one hand I'm supposed to just suck it up, but I did that all the way throughout first and secondary school... then university was so much better, but then after moving to the US university is suddenly like middle school again, and it's just really hard to cope with that.

I wish... I have enough credits, just the wrong ones... I need the lower-division credits for that.

That was one of the nice things about highschool... you were allowed one F for graduation as long as your overall GPA was high enough, so I used that F for Dutch literature... the teacher kept accusing me of not having read the books... that's how bad I was at it. I kept trying to get him to explain what I was doing wrong, but I just never got it. I was thinking about that the other day and I'm figuring that perhaps it has something to do with my Aspieness... I got out of Rhet 1301 by means of my SAT verbal score... 720 is more than the 680 I needed to not need to take Rhet 1301 at the community college I went to for the first semester. After that, UTD doesn't care for Rhet 1301 anyway, so I might as well have scored lower on the SAT. Oh well. <grin> I tried taking Rhet 1302 and dropped it after a while. Not my thing either. I *do* have my advanced writing requirement finished though.

What did you major in? I think they've got a lot more majors now than they used to. I started out as an EE major and switched to neuroscience... back in The Netherlands I'd double majored in Biomedical Science and AI.  What did you do after dropping out?

Heh. I can't say that my parents, inlaws and advisors were taking advantage of me... I think they honestly believed that I could do that much. Adapting to a new country, husband, etc however is perhaps harder for me than for the average person though, I don't know. Also, because I lost so many credits by changing countries I felt I was behind and needed to catch up, so I pushed myself harder than I should have as well. I also should've pushed my husband harder to do more of the chores in the apartment... funny thing is that he was going to be the stay at home dad when some day we'd have kids... but then I burnt out and ended up telling him that he could forget about that and that I was going to be a housewife from then on because he left the chores for me to do anyway. Complicated story... Surprisingly we were both really happy with that arrangement for a while.

It doesn't matter all that much whether I go back to college now or later though, and in case you hadn't noticed we plan on homeschooling our kids... Having a gap after graduating in which you don't work is probably not any better than graduating at an older age. Also, ruining any more semesters due to burning out would probably be really bad at this point. We'll see... I think we're currently on track to worry about more important things first though... We've finally decided to go find an apartment because the house just isn't ready to put a newborn in and thanks to the rain everything is so delayed that it won't be in time either... Been lucky so far that the weather's been fairly cool this summer, but it might very well go up to 105 degrees again like last year... which really isn't much fun without an A/C... I haven't particularly been enjoying the low 90s... I guess that I'll probably skip the fall semester and perhaps go back to school in spring. Who knows?

You sound like me Natalie....

Me too, I feel bad and anxious if i am not learning something, or working in something, or doing some beneficial thing, for me or for someone else, because of that i will gonna study medicine, it's better for an aspie study a career in accord with your interests, and our tenacious and some obsesive nature are a bonus to make it very well

Ayreon.. you got it!  In grad school I did 3 papers for every one paper due.. I found the more I do, I build up on the knowledge .. it serves us well in our careers.. Hey Med school! My psychiatrist has several aspie doctor friends.. he says they do fine except our needs to over do.. His aspie friend who is a doctor has a ranch and goes there on his spare time and just melts into nature.. we need to learn stress relief... but yes the rewards are great <G>

I totally agree.. in art we have to be true to our visions... I aced all my HS classes with all A's so I was exempt from all final exams..   however in College I hated some literature...and chose not to read it.. so I took the fall on the grade..  it did not happen a lot .. just once or twice.. and I remember studying one poem about this thing floating on the ocean.. the prof said what was it?  No one really knew.. and we knew she would jump down our throat if we were wrong (how can you be wrong about opinions? ) LOL

Two before me gave their opinion and she said WRONG!  Then I finally had it and gave my opinion.. Isaid it was a jellyfish with a fetus inside... she looked at me like I was nuts ROFL

She said it was the human soul, how could we not get it?!

Yes critics who give opinions are idiots.. even in art... At my art shows I have tons of people telling what they insist who I am , what I think and why I did the painting.

I can have one painting and one person will tell me I am the devil and next in line the person will tell me I and Jesus Christ incarnate, the next tells me I know their soul, the next tells me I have ruined their life, the next tells me I saved her daughter soul and she is going back to church now.. ROFL

I love it after a while to see the next symbolism they see in it..

Then I get the question. tell me what is IN your art.. what are you trying to SAY? I respond.. you tell me.. you are the viewer.. LOL some feel hanging in the air while others are delighted to insist my soul is like this and I see that and I must be this way ! LOL

CRitics are the worst I enver read reviews on anyone .. they are a waste of time.. My husband use to live off them until finally he got burnt so often by their mis reviews...