What is the Best field of study for an Aspie?

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What is the best job/field of study for an Aspie?
Accounting 5%  5%  [ 1 ]
Computer Information Systems 37%  37%  [ 7 ]
Criminal Justice 0%  0%  [ 0 ]
Early Childhood Education 0%  0%  [ 0 ]
Entrepreneurship 0%  0%  [ 0 ]
Exercise Science 5%  5%  [ 1 ]
Geographic Information Systems 0%  0%  [ 0 ]
Graphic Design 26%  26%  [ 5 ]
Human Services 5%  5%  [ 1 ]
Industrial Technology 5%  5%  [ 1 ]
Interpreter Training 0%  0%  [ 0 ]
Legal Interpreting 0%  0%  [ 0 ]
Library and Information Studies 5%  5%  [ 1 ]
Photography 0%  0%  [ 0 ]
Real Estate 0%  0%  [ 0 ]
Translation 0%  0%  [ 0 ]
World Wide Web/Internet 11%  11%  [ 2 ]
Total votes : 19

Maeko
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15 Jan 2012, 4:28 pm

Having trouble deciding..
I need some input on what you people would major in and what your good at and if there's any experienced people on here who know what types of jobs do well during this Age of Economic Crisis.
(What type of job would get you employed?..etc )



psychegots
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15 Jan 2012, 4:38 pm

Psychology!! It's crazy fun (and when the economy goes to s**t people need their shrinks lol).



Antreus
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15 Jan 2012, 4:50 pm

Hey Maeko,

A problem I've noticed in some of your categories are that there is no 'best' major, because the deficits and benefits vary amongst individuals - we aren't all Temple Grandins for example. I picked internet because it is an information-research hub, something that any Aspie perhaps cherishes, in order to find out more information on their latest or current craze.

Now I've majored in Animation-Game Art with Fine Art training for 2.5 years, got my Associates of Arts and transferred to a four-year university to study International Studies, a branch of political and social science, and minor in GIS. After having coming off my 'interest' in this field after committing to it for three years I have decided to switch my major yet again into the sciences. Why?

Several reasons are that there are trends in college majors, just like the psychology major which I don't recommend for anyone. I don't recommend psychology as a stand-a-lone major for ANYONE unless it is paired with a hard science (neuroscience is an emerging field), otherwise you'll find yourself in a predicament, a bind, whatever you want to call it when you graduate. When I went to school 7 years ago attempting to get a BA it was trendy to do computer illustration et al., now those people who went to school there either become entrepenurial, freelancers, or miss the curve and aren't hired or don't continue in their field. Anyone can do computer graphic design now on Picnik.com online, free. The tools are replacing the people.

I think scientific inquiry on any level is good for a person on the spectrum because your attention to detail will not be lost and it will more than likely be rewarded. Also it isn't really held sway to 'trends'. There is constant value in a scientific, research, and computer background. From what I understand it most of our scientific degrees are awarded in the U.S to foreign nationals, and when they leave we will be experiencing a reverse-brain drain. Science matters still.

I found this out in my liberal arts - international studies major. I spent so much time researching, getting the facts, good information, organizing it, making good correlations, with solid analysis, that I had a hard time making deadlines for my research papers. I didn't deserve the grades I received for the quality of work I turned in. The stress got to me finally, before I found out I had AS, and I had a change of heart about the whole thing. I would avoid the Liberal Arts right now simply because the amount of those degrees there are and a constant demand for brains in scientific fields. I wouldn't avoid them entirely, truly they have their merits, but as far as employment they are shallower.

My liberal arts teachers appreciated my work, but the cultural milieu of liberal arts education, because of the amount of people it serves, tends to be like fast-food college from my 7 years experience in the system. People leave thinking they are smart, that the real world is going to have open arms, but they didn't really ask any probing questions or make a startling discovery, merely rote based knowledge and theory they cannot seemingly apply, regurgitated and hollow, with existential dread afterwards.

You want a degree that enables you to solve problems. If it doesn't do that, based on your talents, then it's hogwash - even if whomever means well telling you to do whatever it is you're supposed to do. Do not simply do something because you like it. If you like history, fine, but it is all about how you apply it. If you don't have a goal in mind when you do a Major in history that's bad. Always try to choose an interdisciplinary field (my experience) paired with a special-interest, that's where the discoveries are, and the attention to detail will be best suited here. I inevitably left my last degree path because it didn't help me solve the worldwide problems I wanted to work on solving anymore, merely gave me the words/ideas/concepts to go about expressing them.

If you're well-read, can make connections well to things between disciplines, and are more of a pattern and verbal brain (myself) I would suggest looking into a scientific field (I'm going into Bioinformatics) and use your long-term memory to your advantage and become a research assistant.

Interdisciplinary combinations of Scientific inquiry and computer technology/engineering is perhaps the next emergent field. Bill Gates made mention of this in a speech. Example: combining both computer engineering with biological processes for example. If you do this you will have marketable skills in both areas, giving you more leverage. Do not enter a field that will be replaced by an algorithm, tool, machine, or hard science in the near future that doesn't require people for it to operate.



cathylynn
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15 Jan 2012, 6:02 pm

if i liked it, i would be some type of engineer. engineers with BS's make as much as many MD's. in the most recent recession, engineers were still in demand.



RW665
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15 Jan 2012, 6:40 pm

I'm majoring in psychology. It's the best for me because since I find it interesting I have the motivation to work hard, get good grades and to pursue a career in it. So just look at what your interests are, but also consider what futures there are in those.


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15 Jan 2012, 8:43 pm

I would say some form of regular science, or psychology.

But you put them in Alphabetical order!! ! You just got a star in my book!! !


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ktbug
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15 Jan 2012, 10:32 pm

It depends on what your strengths and interests are. I am very detail oriented so I have a degree in accounting, a degree in piano tuning, and I also proofread and edit. These three areas of interest work well for me, and I'm always able to find work in at least one of the areas.



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15 Jan 2012, 11:30 pm

Whoah whoah whoah, I don't feel right telling you what you should do with your life. Besides, you left out the vote for "Jedi Master". Aspies have different interests, just like everyone else. They're the ones who advance each individual field. They've made the best engineers, programmers, financial experts, crime lords, writers, businessmen, military commanders, lawyers, scientists, etc. Humanity can't afford to concentrate all the geniuses into only one field, at the cost of advancing so many others! Plus, can you imagine the competition if all aspies jam packed ourselves into only one field? "Look at me, I found the Higgs Boson and trained it to do cartwheels!" "Oh yeah? I found a way to turn carbon dioxide into cake! Looks like I'm getting the raise this week."



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15 Jan 2012, 11:57 pm

It depends on your interests, really, as it does for everyone. You'll tend to do better in those subjects. I'm quite partial to psychology, myself. I don't know about you, but for me, I like classes that are structured: just lectures, exams, papers with the topic already chosen. And I hate independent research projects, group work, presentations, focus on class discussions as the basis of the grade, etc. I also quite like large classes and don't particularly care if I don't get to know my professors, which matters for some bizarre reason to a lot of people (well, I do admit it's helpful to know them if you need a letter of recommendation, but I doubt that's the only reason people want to know their professors). So for me the most important thing isn't the class topic, but the class structure. So you might want to consider that as well.



deathsign
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16 Jan 2012, 11:01 am

depends on urself..
what r u good at? what r u interested in?
what jobs are in demand where u live?


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Orwell
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16 Jan 2012, 11:20 am

Psychology has one of the highest unemployment rates of any college major, and also terribly low wages.

There are no unemployed actuaries.


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Embroglio
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16 Jan 2012, 1:18 pm

It depends on the person. Having Aspergers doesn't decide ones major, if that were the case wouldn't we all be engineers or computer programers? But it truly does depend on the person and their strengths. I'm not very good with Math so I would never be an engineer.



psychegots
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16 Jan 2012, 2:48 pm

Orwell wrote:
Psychology has one of the highest unemployment rates of any college major, and also terribly low wages.

There are no unemployed actuaries.


Are you talking about psychologists or people with bachelor or master degrees in psychology? I'm just curious because private psychologists surely don't have terribly low wages here (or northern Europe in general)



fiooo
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16 Jan 2012, 3:29 pm

If you're good at logic and want a job after graduating, do computer science. To convince you, just think about all the jobs that are being replaced because everything is being mechanized and automated. We are undergoing a new industrial revolution where everything will be automated and as information technology advances, many manual labor and repetitive jobs will be replaced by computers. We need people to program those computers. People who think like computers make the best programmers and those tend to have a mild touch of autism.