College is a waste of time.

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I think it depends on what field you're entering. I know someone who is a computer programmer who never went to college (he's completely self taught, actually) and he makes quite a bit of money. No one asks him where he went to college, they just look at his past work and decide whether they want to hire him or not, and he does very good work. There are fields, though, that you can't really get work in unless you go to college.

College works for some people but it didn't work for me as i didn't get anywhere.

Hmm, I've been having a great time in college. Though I'm from Canada, where it appears to be much easier to make Learning Services your b***h. Okay, not really your b***h, but being assertive and clever has gotten me alot. So far I've gotten:

- Access to a non-sucky counsellor once a week to talk over my difficulties and figure out how to fix them.
- Access to a learning assistant who does kind of suck, but still is useful for disability cred.
- A reserved quiet room where I can go to have a meltdown any time the school is open (seriously, I'm allowed to kick people out. I stock it with tissues and water bottles ). Also good for when I need a quiet place to do my work.
- People at the counselling office and learning services no longer freak out when I go non-verbal, the just let me into the quiet room to calm down.
- It's my choice whether to explain why I had a melt-down. People are okay with ignoring outbursts so long as I do not disrupt other students (easy to do with access to the quiet room)
- People to run errands for me when I have a meltdown, so things still get dealt with even when I'm overwhelmed.
- A tutor for dealing with interpersonal and teamwork issues (I may not have this next year, but even just for one year this was amazingly helpful).
- Permission to wear noise cancelling headphones to lectures and class.
- Permission to leave lectures at any time without comment, even if I look distressed (very good in melt-down situations when I just need to run away)
- Extra help from teachers to make up anything I miss because of partially or totally missed lectures.
- Notetaking for when I miss a class or am too overloaded to write and listen at the same time (kind of unreliable, but whatever).
- Extra time for tests, and a quiet room to do them in (have to do an annoying amount of paperwork each test to do this though)
- Enough flexibility to discuss and try out new strategies as needed (BIG help)


I've had to fight pretty hard for some of this stuff, but that has been a self-affirming experience in itself. And I get a happy feeling thinking about how it's probably going to be a bit easier for the next aspie to come through, since now the school has a better idea on how to help them.

I'm pretty sure that most of my situation is due to pure luck though. I probably wouldn't be doing as well if I wasn't in the right place at the right time, you know? Either way, I'm very grateful.

fix'd

I majored in both german AND anthropology and I'm trying to make up for it by getting microsoft certifications now.

I loved college, I learned so much in my four years. I studied Classics which is Latin and Ancient Greek. I enjoyed the discussions with lecturers and my fellow students most. I also had access to an excellent counselor and psychiatrist too who really helped me. I am going back in September to do an IT diploma and then after this I want to do a Masters in IT. I think education is worthwhile regardless of whether its profitable or not.

Your only criterion is money?! There's so much more to it! I'm going to college because I want a job I can be interested in. I could become a repair(wo)man and earn just as much as I'd earn designing rehab equipment; one requires an apprenticeship, the other requires an engineering degree... But you can bet there is a lot more interesting work in designing unique equipment for a group of people where you'd be hard-put to find two people with the same needs... as opposed to figuring out why somebody's TV is on the fritz. Not to mention it's probably a lot more satisfying to make something that helps somebody do more things, rather than something that only lets them become a couch potato.

Anyway, if you've got a huge drive to think and solve problems 24/7 like I do, any job that interests you is going to be something you need a degree for. I don't think there are a lot of jobs left that you can get without a degree and that still offer new problems to solve after a year of work.

By the way, I thought at first that taking philosophy would be a waste of time... it's not. Very much not. It gives you a lot of tools to think about things with greater precision, whether or not you think (as I do) that Nietzsche was a total jerk.

OP, you must not have graduated from college that long ago. I got a fairly generic liberal arts degree. I worked a few years as a grunt, but now I have a very good job. I could not have that job without the scrap of paper that says I finished a bachelor's. To young people, I say, "Get that scrap of paper." No matter how much you think it is *BS*, it makes your life easier if you have that.