I need some opinions of maybe older aspies

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So I'll give you a bit of history into my education.
I went to public high school for two years for a specialty arts program. It was a clusterfck of a mess. My grades plummeted, I had issues making friends so I hung out with the outcasts. I stopped going to class because I got really bored and only showed up for tests and I got my friends to hand my homework in for me. When I had to quit dancing (which is what my specialty program was for) they kicked me out because despite my high scores, I had an extremely low attendance record and I was a blemish on the pretty little skin that was one of the best public high schools in the city. My parents didn't know what to do (I wouldn't survive a day in the high school closest to my house, and I was past the deadline for applying for out-of-district public schools) so they put me back into the private school I attended in junior high due to bullying. I flourished there because I didn't bother making any friends and my grades rose to the point where I was valedictorian and was awarded numerous awards for my extremely high test scores. I was a teachers pet, and the principals pet, so it's no shock really that they were very enthusiastic (even if I was not) for me to attend university straight out of high school, at only 16 years old. I chose a program at random, that I was sure I'd be accepted into, even if I wasn't that interested. Fast forward 4 years, bounced around degrees, bounced around universities, and I'm well on my way to a couple of degrees (BFA in dramatic arts in theatre design and directing or BSc.Hon double majoring in Neurosciences and Biochemistry) but I decided university really isn't for me, the idea of medical school or graduate school just seems to daunting. I prefer a hands on environment, so I went and I took my EMR (first responder, one step below an EMT) course. I aced it and I'm registered with my local agency to legally practice in my jurisdiction and I applied to the EMT course but I applied too late and was wait listed for the program. Meanwhile, watching some friends go through it, but also considering the pressures for it (ie. bedside manner is the one section that I bombed in my qualifications) I think I've decided that I don't think I'd make a good EMT. I'm good under pressure, but i'm not sympathetic enough to deal with the amount of morons that abuse the health care system in my area (Free health care sounds good, until everyone decides that they need to call emergency services for every single cough that they get).
So basically what I proceeded to do was put together lists of my strengths and weaknesses and come up with a career that I won't obsess over (thus later allowing me to lose all interest in it), doesn't require years and years of training, and allows for different advancements and various careers blossoming within it, thus keeping me challenged towards obtaining a goal, and I think I figured it out. I'm going to be a police officer.
Now this is interesting, because I met with my specialist today (my AS specialist) and enlightened him about this new revelation. It's interesting because when I told him that I was beginning my Neurosci degree he wasn't sure that I was going to be able to deal with the classrooms and amount of schooling it would take for me to obtain a career "worthy" of my "intellect" (he's convinced that I won't be happy sitting around being a research assistant). Then when I told him about the EMT thing, he still wasn't quite as sure that I would be able to handle the amount of interaction required for outstanding bedside manner. Today when I told him about my decision regarding my further career change, it was like a light came on. All of a sudden he was on the phone to people that owed him favours to get me a meeting with a high ranking constable who is interested in people with AS and how they could help the community so that I could use her as a reference and talking about what team I was wanting to join and whatnot.
I'm figuring that he hasn't yet been wrong regarding my career decisions, but I'm interested what people here have to say.
What does everyone think?

Always difficult to give an educated opinion without knowing you in person. From what you said, you seem to have changing interests and attention difficulties since you're bouncing degrees lots. You must learn to set your own clear goals, break them into simple steps and respect them.

Neurosci is cool is you like competition and understand that you need a PhD and postdoc to do anything relevant. So be careful with the debt burden.

EMT is a cool career if you cope with stress, emergency, night shifts, odd hours, long waiting time, and blood well. You have to be prepared to the worst (e.g. kid crashed by a car) but hopefull doesn't happen everyday. Your doc is right it takes lot of interaction and compassion. One way to test it would be to be with a team couple days and to do CPR training.

Have you ever tried job orientation tests ?

Well to start with all that sounds really cool - I am 61 not sure if that really matters though but I use to program and I simply would exist within the thing so I was really good - I allso love research but sometimes it makes me nervous after a while and a lot of aspies are really good at both - I see program code running though my head - I think we like to exist in something that forces us to stay in continuous concentrationwhere we do not have a gap of down time and not get bored - It sounds like you are searhing and I think when you find you well be awesome

Hi Sugar. I think you would be a great EMT. Why not give it a try, and if it doesn't work out, try something else in the health professional such as clinical lab tech? Your EMT experience would count a lot, and that work will also count toward a future in neuroscience if you so choose. Right now, what it seems you need is some real-life work experience (and a bit of cash!) so that you can figure out what you want to do. I didn't realize that I would enjoy accounting until I tried it.

Best of luck.

Wow, you sure seem to have a desire to do something in the realm of the biological, or health/medical sciences, but is this really where your passion lies? Have you always wanted to do something along these lines? Too, are you certain that you have the necessary aptitudes for these fields? These are all questions that you have to ask yourself. The important thing is to do something that you really enjoy and are excited about.

You might find that you have several passions and in that case you might look for a way to combine them into one career path. It is also possible that you might realize later in life that you want to go off in another direction. This a common occurrence. I went from engineering (37 years) to history, philosophy & political science. Whatever you do, it sounds as if you have the ability to do whatever it is that you set your mind on.

police officers need empathy as much as EMT's do. i failed at being a doctor due to poor social skills and caution you from pursuing a police career, fearing you would have the same outcome.

Aren't there some medical specialties were dealing directly with patients is minimal? Things like pathologist or radiologist come to mind. And a little bit more removed would be a medical examiner doing autopsies.

Among others you get to deal with people who're broken, people who have pathologies, and people who're pregnant. All need to be handled with huge amounts of compassion, empathy etc... because you're not always the bearer of good news

Years ago, I wrote and maintained a billing system for a radiologist practice. His wife ran the billing portion and she's the one I mainly dealt with. According to her, he had the perfect practice for a doctor because he rarely ever saw the patients but was paid quite well to read their x-rays.

I know that in my case, I've had plenty of x-rays since I was a kid but have never met the radiologist who read the x-rays or even known his name. The same goes for a pathologist.

How long did you actually ride the medic?

They obviously ran things differently in the radiology dept where I worked. But then I was in a military hospital in Africa, and not a private practice.

I know you were looking for the advice of older aspies and I'm NT, but I just wanted to add that you could possibly put yourself in danger if you have a problem reading faces/gauging intentions. However, if there are different kinds of police officers in CA and perhaps you could do something where you wouldn't be out on the street having to make life or death decisions based on social cues that could work out pretty cool.

Why exactly wouldn't you be interested in being a research assistant? I know your advisor wasn't into that, but I think that's often a very aspie-friendly career and you could easily find something that is "worthy" of your intellect. Then later if you wanted to continue with school slowly, you'd be in a good position to do that.

Also, I'd take that worthy of intellect thing with a grain of salt. I have an aspie friend with a genius IQ and he's said repeatedly that the best job he ever had was in a factory on an assembly line. No one bothered him with stupid questions or social expectations and he just listened to audiobooks all day. Being happy is what's important.

Trust your gut about your own abilities and don't limit yourself to things that are 'aspie-friendly,' if you think other options would be more rewarding for you. Just go into it knowing that you will have to work harder than most of your coworkers and struggle to fake-it-till-you-make-it, since you may have to learn things on an intellectual level that are just instinctual to other people. And, be prepared to own the decision to go into a challenging career.

In terms of your bedside manner and interactions with patients, the most important thing is that you genuinely care about your patients and find ways you can show it. That matters much more to people in vulnerable positions than social awkwardness or problems with eye contact. And, this is coming from an aspie who has worked with people in crisis and people who are dealing with chronic illnesses on a daily basis for years.

That said, I would really try to look for opportunities to shadow people working in the career you are interested in before committing a particular path or spending money on additional education. A lot of time, there is a big difference between learning about something in books and actually doing it everyday.