What helped you in post secondary?

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Hi everyone. Long story short I'm working with my college to help educate staff on Autism/Asperger's and am trying to think of things staff can do to help us in college/university

Any tips of what worked or didn't work for you?

What worked: Staying out of trouble; showing up to every class; studying hard; completing all of my assignments; turning in my assignments before the deadline; and having no social life to speak of.

What didn't work: Worrying about what others thought of me; watching the telly; over-eating; under-eating; neglecting my health; trying to socialize; or obsessing about women.

My sixth-form had a mentor, and I saw her for an hour a week just to chat and I told her all my difficulties and we would talk about strategies to deal with them. This was also useful for me from the perspective that I also had anxiety and depression to contend with, and at that point was undiagnosed as a dyslexic. She was very helpful and clued up about autism. Also she could speak to staff on my behalf for me if I found it too difficult. So for example she sent a memo out to all my teachers telling them that I sometimes have sensory overloads particularly when the class is grouped up in group discussion work because of all the noise and requesting that I be able to leave the classroom to calm down for a bit without having to ask each time or any attention being drawn to me etc. This was obviously done with my consent. All of the teachers got back to her to confirm that it was fine and I was able to do that in future which lessened my anxiety because I knew I wouldn't end up having a meltdown in front of my classmates as I had done previously when I was too scared to ask if I could temporarily leave as I didn't know how to explain to my teachers why I had to.

I had my exams in the main exam hall with everyone else in sixth-form too but at uni I have them in a small room on my own with an individual invigilator which is so much better for my anxiety and my performance is now better in exams. I wish that had been put in place for me earlier during my studies. The main exam hall was difficult for me because of the sensory input, it was distracting and made me anxious.