AS and computer-related careers

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This has been a bane for the better part of my teenage years: the assumption that people with AS are instinctively drawn towards computer-related activities, majors, and careers. At least for me, the stereotype has no basis. I've simply never been interested in computers. Yes, I realize that they're an absolute societal necessity. I mean, I can build a computer and set up a simple network, but I only learned to do so to save money (I'm sure many of you can attest that DIY is always cheaper than buying prepackaged/paying a 3rd party), not because I was genuinely interested in the subject. I've always been a practical, if not frugal, person: always changed my own oil, did my own maintenance, etc., so it seemed like a logical procession.

I may only be speaking for myself, and I may only be venting. But if I had a nickel for every time someone suggested IT as a career, I'd be pretty well off. I usually respond with "Why do you say that? I don't like working with computers." Too many times, I've overheard conversations between my mother and an teacher or counselor that followed the same pattern: my mother would explain AS to the party in question, they'd respond with a variant of "Oh, your son has [some form of] autism? Why don't you try to get him a job in computers?" Years later, a mandated computer course actually brought my college GPA down.

Thanks, but no thanks. Some people don't seem to realize that it's possible for a kid with AS to have interests besides computers.

What do you think? Have you run across this stereotype?

I like to use computers. I have no interest in programming them or doing anything else with them whatsoever.

Thank you for saying that, it's so true! However, I would like to broaden your statement to include technical/mathematical subjects in general. I am drawn to liberal arts subjects, especially literature (English-Creative Writing is my major in college), so I am tired of people assuming that aspies only care about more concrete and fact-based subjects.

I can't live without computers... removing me from a computer actually "unplugs" my personality...

I like computers, history, movies, creative writing etc...

They're still all nerdy things though.

I don't go in for football etc.

I've been a pretty hardcore computer geek for my entire life. Computers are one of my primary hobbies, much of my educational background is in computer science, and I write developer documentation for a living.

Computers fascinate me on so many levels, it is difficult to describe; they are one of the more "prefect" of available Aspie passions. I can learn their language and talk to them, get them to do things for me; in general, computers speak a language that is much more precise and non-ambiguous than human language. They enable us to connect and exchange information in ways that were not even conceived of half a century ago; this place is a beautiful example of that. And, how the hell did we ever manage to find information or get anything done without the internet?

I'm just old enough to remember life before the internet; I ran old-school BBSs before that, and I remember my user base dwindling down as the internet became more and more mainstream. People just a bit younger than me will have no recollection of life before this; it's like knowing what life was like before electricity was widely available, or indoor plumbing, or refrigeration; except in a much more widely impactful sense.

Circling back around to the main subject, I strongly suspect some correlation between AS and being geeky, and there of course a further correlation between being geeky and being a computer geek. This theme seems fairly consistent, but not universal; so, there is perhaps some credence to the stereotype. I'm mildly surprised to learn about people with AS who have no aptitude for and/or interest in computers; but they are out there, and that is that.

For every rule there is an exception.

Good fortune,

- Icarus misses talking to tape drives in M68000 ASM...

I'm majoring in MIS, but I'm interested in the business side of things more than the computer side. I learn computer stuff quickly so even though I never took any programming courses in high school I can still keep up really well. I choose the major mostly because of my first job as an intern at Caterpillar working with the new engine ordering software and fixing stuff that got messed up. I love to solve puzzles and because the system always had mistakes in it, it gave me the opportunity to try to find out where the mistakes were coming from, why they were happening, and how it could be prevented or fixed. The major I have is in high demand from many places despite what some may think (a lot of kids stay away from computer related majors because they think demand for them all but vanished after the Y2K scare was over, but actually demand is very high partly because people think demand is low). Anyway, that's why I have a computer related major. I don't build my own computers, I know only a semester's worth of Visual Basic Programing, and there are still issues I have to ask my dad to help me with (but that's usually stuff that needs software I don't have, or things on the computer at home which I never use and it has Vista so it's almost completely foreign to me. Or like the other day I discovered some things on my laptop, like hard ware you plug different types of cards into depending on what you want to do, except I have never used them so I didn't know what they were, turns out if I had a digital camera I could plug the memory card directly into my PC who'd a thunk it! but my dad ordered my laptop I didn't and if I don't use it I don't know what is. )

I learned some things this semester I didn't plan on though. I learned what the "blue screen of death" and just how little even the experts know about it. You would think somewhere out there some one who know for a fact what each individual STOP code means, like maybe, I don't know they people who wrote them! Anyway, I still don't kow why I got the "blue screen of death" but after repairing the opperating system things appear okay, it was so infrequent though that I can't tall for sure if it's fixed yet.

Okay I'll stop rambling now.