Are you at ,or have you dropped out of University?

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Hello,

I am carrying out research into the experiences of students with High Functioning Autism/ Aspergers Syndrome and their preparation and experiences of University. I would like to hear from students who have dropped out of University before completing their degree and those currently at University. Please email me on [email protected] if you are interested in participating.

Yours sincerely,

Bonnie Bullivant

I'll participate as i'm currently a freshman at university, but I do not want to use email for confidential reasons.

I dropped out midway through a university degree a few years ago.
The nature of the subject required both academic and practical competences, and I was fine with that, but dropped out when I got to the job based intern part - couldn't deal with coworkers and supervisors, couldn't deal with the established social structure, the job culture, the heirachy, the attitudes and emotions of other people and demanding I be like them - basically that I did not "fit in" became acutely apparent and in that field, it was very important to success.
I'm possibly going back to university this year into a sort of related field though - I'm still interested in that nature of work, I just didn't take autism into account well enough last time, and this time I am.
Last time I'd convinced myself I was invincible and I could do anything a normal person my age could do. Dead wrong. Hopefully this time is more productive.

perhaps. I'm really looking to start turning my life around and to be proactive in overcoming all my foibles. I think I need to get a job, for example, break myself out of the inertia of depression. So far I've been studying to be an actuary, so I can study and study and take those exams whether i'm in school or not. maybe after some break, I'll round out my courses in community college to save some money, and see where it goes from there. Really don't want to leave my school but I gotta make some drastic changes in my life.

Autistic Burnout and High school drop out here

I had VERY bad attendance until I dropped out in the ninth grade. I also dropped out of art school. In my 20's I spent countless hours in the library voraciously reading and learning and ironically wishing I had been able to cope with school. However the being around humans was and is abhorrent for me. I've always heard if you're good at something eventually success will follow but this isn't true if you don't possess the social skills or an advocate to help. You really have to push for success and people don't respect those who don't "push". I have always taken "no" to mean just that so I don't "push" further. I understand the concept but I find it disagreeable.

I'm at College, not Uni, we have a slightly different system in the UK. Not sure if that counts?

Awesome name btw "Bonnie Bullivant".

I completed two college degrees: a Bachelor of Art in Graphic Design, and a Bachelor of Science in Biology/Botany emphasis. I took the Graduate Record Exam, which in the US is a test we take prior to entering graduate school. I did well enough to be offered a full fellowship for a PhD in genetics, which would pay for tuition, fees, and housing. It wasn't my original plan (I'd been wanting to study Botany Ecology) but I did like genetics.

Now, in the US, the typical progression for graduate coursework is: bachelor's degree, master's degree, then doctorate (PhD, JD, or medical doctor). I was skipping a step with this fellowship, by going from bachelor's to PhD.

I thought I could handle it--everybody had told me I was a bright girl and I'd done pretty well in school.

I was just starting a new relationship, the first serious one I'd ever had, and it turned out to be really demanding. I'd always done well with my studies because I threw myself into them completely. Now I found myself with a person making demands on my time and emotions, and it was a lot to handle. I also was not doing well managing my money, since my partner had moved with me to the university town and was having trouble finding work. I also injured my back moving our furniture into our apartment.

I only had four classes and no graduate research or teaching that semester, but I was really struggling. I did well in the two courses that interested me, genetics and statistics, but was doing poorly in the other courses, biochemistry and cell biology, because there was so much memorization and had difficulty retaining the material.

My dad was diagnosed with terminal cancer partway through the semester, and I was completely overwhelmed. We had a really difficult relationship, but it just seemed like my emotions completely shut me down. I couldn't think or concentrate, and I just stopped trying to keep up with my studies. I got washed out of the program at the end of the semester.

I have been to two different universities to study two different degrees. Despite achieving exceptionally high grades during my first years, in both cases I dropped out a short time into the second year. This was before I was diagnosed with Asperger's. For me, it was social and financial issues unrelated to University but related to my condition, which at the time was labelled as depression, that became too hard to cope with and were the reason for me leaving. The first time, I had become a target for exploitation and left through fear, and the second time it was triggered by the breakdown of a romantic relationship which resulted in housing issues. I think if I could go back in time, I would not have gone to university because now I have a student loan that I have very little hope of ever really making a dent in for as long as I live.

I am not certain if this counts, but...

I went away to college when I was 18. I realized fairly quickly that it was a huge mistake. I dropped out after 3 months and moved back home. After a while, my parents told me I had to either move out, get a job or attend a local college. Because I had no idea what to do with my life, I decided to bide my time by attending a local commuter college. It actually worked out well (for me) because: a) I could attend school anonymously; b) I got to take classes I enjoyed (including computer classes); and c) I didn't need to interact with other students.

I dropped out halfway through my second semester, I couldn't handle all the pressure of going to two schools at once. I'll probably try to get back into college once I'm done with Trade school and if I haven't made a decent living off of selling games and apps.

I dropped out a couple of years into my degree. I'd also run away from home briefly at the time of my first school exams.

The reason I couldn't cope with University were more social than academic - I even later went on to have a couple of jobs in electronic engineering, the degree I was studying. However, it was my first time living away from home, first exposure to pubs and clubs, first exposure to flirting and romance, and first exposure to taking responsibility for caring for myself. Those things, I just could not handle - I ended up wasting all my money on alcohol, thinking that I would find a social side to myself if I just "relaxed" enough (I was not diagnosed until much later in life). Once I had drunk my money away, and missed most of my coursework due to intoxication or hangovers, I couldn't face the university authorities out of shame, so packed up and left.

Trogluddite, your experience sounds extremely similar to mine, although I used recreational drugs rather than alcohol but apart from that your story sounds very very familiar.

Is this a personal project of yours, rather than a research study that has institutional approval? Research conducted by university staff usually has an institutional email contact address. WP is seeing more and more of these solicitations for information lately. Bona fide researchers need prior approval from WP's owner, and credibility requires a formal study proposal, ethical approval from the source institution, satisfactory privacy procedures, and access to the design, method and results.

Bona fide institutionally approved research is best not carried out via responses to a private email address. The lack of attention to these important details raises doubt that there is no institutional knowledge nor approval underlying these requests.

All 'research' proposals should be transparent, and if the material is being sought as content for essay purposes without the university being aware of this, that fact should be stated clearly. The ultimate use of the research needs to be fully disclosed in all cases, and contact details which allow people to verify the research has university approval or to register concerns if they arise. The lack of these indicate that the research is not being conducted in a professional and academic manner.

For all practical purposes, I'm a drop-out, but I'm still in denial about it.

I'm probably saying the same thing that everybody else as already said. But the biggest problem I had with school was the other students. I just can see how anyone can study anything in the presents of other people. It horribly distracting, I can not concentrate worth a damn. Add bullying to the mix and that just make it that much worst. The only subject I've ever learned in school was how to survive bullying and how evil, human being can be. I drop out of 10th grade and got my GED. I never cared to go to collage or university because why pay for the same crap that I didn't want that I got for free. It's like paying to go to jail. All the education I ever got in life came from the Library and the Internet.

OMT: I did 6 months at both a boarding school and a catholic school and it was the same crap I got in public school.

Here's something to think about. When I was 12 years old. My IQ tested a 154. Which is considered genius level. But all I ever got in school was C's and D's and my GPA was 2.2. Try figuring that out.