Going to UNIVERSITY for the FIRST TIME and having AS

Post Reply New Topic

I'm going to uni soon and I've been to the open days. Being an aspie I can't really say I have a passion for socialising BUT all my friends are applying for different degrees and I feel nervous, alone, scared and I somtimes want to cry. I will miss my school dearly, and the teachers because it has been brilliant. I didn't want it to end.

People at uni don't know me and I feel alien to them. I just don't like the prospect of IMPERSONAL-ness. To be honest i want just want to cry. Being independant is shocking for me.

How do I deal with this. By the end of the day when I visited the uni at the open day I enjoyed it but I'm losing sleep now over it because my nervousness kicks in. I'll leave my friends, my old life and any hint of social life I had. I don't want to fall into a pit of depression again.

Please help.

Asperger's was unheard of when I went university and when I look back at myself then, I would have been an obvious candidate. I desperately wanted to get to know people, well, girls, actually, and would try to get beyond the hovering around and furtive, sideways glancing by constructing conversation topics as an excuse and crutch to talk to them. I couldn't do impro. I would eventually pluck up the courage to approach someone, armed with a monologue about my summer job, which happened to be pushing a lawnmower around my local cemetery. Even better, sometimes I had helped to fill in the grave after a funeral, if the gravediggers were short-staffed. I even had an album of graveyard photos, including an open grave and shots of myself posing with the tools of the trade, including a coffin-shaped template for manual digging. It simply never crossed my mind that perhaps the girls might not actually be interested in any of this.........................................................................

Just keep an open mind --- I hear that uni is a place where new relationships are forged and new forms are bonded; where new opportunities are discovered and unearthed too. Good luck.

There are pluses and minuses to university for AS people. It's impossible to know them all until you are in it.
plus:
-you can study a subject of your interest
-more independence of study
-noone will bug you for being different (but you may be excluded for being different)
minus:
-very NT focused social environment
-can be very tough to make friends, it can be a very lonely place for an AS person
-you may finish your degree and decide you hate what you studied and be at square 1 again (this is not limited to AS people)

I was about to start a thread on this! I am going to uni soon and I'm really scared I'll have no friends, 'cause all I seem to hear about uni social life is about parties, clubbing, proms (or whatever it's called at uni), getting drunk and having sex. All the people on the UCAS forums seem to be into this kind of stuff, and (I'm just gonna be rude now) seem shallow and stupid. I know there must be nerds there but how do I find them?

I know it might be different, but I remember when I left primary school I was really scared but once I'd settled into my secondary school I thought it was loads better. I think the best we can do is try to think of all the good stuff about uni and try not to freak out too much (although that's bloody difficult)!
Is there a lot of support availlable at the uni you're going to? I'm trying to choose one where I know I can get help if I need it (from the Student Counselling Centre, the Disability and Dyslexia support, financial advisers, personal tutor etc.)

Space - I doubt changing your mind is limited to Aspies! It definately wouldn't put you back in square 1 as having a degree is very vauled, even if it's not relevent to what you're working as. That's my understanding anyway.

Well nerds hang about near the libraries - at least thats where i'll hang about (not implying I'm a nerd btw).

UCAS forums exist? Where?

In my UCAS form thing I took offence when it said select "disability". I mean screw 'em AS is NOT a disablity.

I find that confronting my fear, going to open days, relaxes me, I'm getting to know the environment.

They're called YouGo. You can talk to people who are going to go to your univeristy.

Which uni are you going to? What are you going to study? (I'm intrigued now I know you live in the UK)

Perhaps they can't be bothered to write 'Disability/medical condition/specific learning difficulty' I suppose terminology with these things is difficult.
What I found odd was that 'Autism Spectrum Disorder' was below 'Two or more of the above'. If that's a mistake, that's an amusingly bad one because people with an ASD are likely to take it literally - that you are not allowed to say you have more than one condition if one condition is an ASD.

I didn't know anyone at my course when I started university and I'm not a fan of drinking or clubbing, so what I did was to start talking to the people sitting next to me in lectures* we're still on good terms but after about half a year I managed to gravitate to a few other geeks.

* If your nervous about choosing people to sit next to, you could try getting there early and taking a nice central seat.

I'm a junior in uni now. Here's some of what I learned.

1) Uni is not like the movies. It's just not. Sure, you get the random spring day when people run around the quad with frisbees and it looks like a movie, but it's not one.

2) People like to exaggerate their experiences. The "this one time I was so drunk" stories--most of them are fabrications of what certain people think happened. Or it gets changed simply because it makes a better story. Not everyone is that crazy, and not everyone drinks.

3) If you can stand it, go to club meetings. Because they are incredibly awkward for everyone. NTs will be as hesitant to talk as you, maybe more so.

4) This related to number two. Not everyone is having crazy amounts of sex. How do I know this? Well, I got to a fairly small school. And if all the guys who are gettin' some really are, and all the girls who say they aren't really aren't, there are at least six guys making it with every one girl.

There's much much more to college than parties and sex and drunken antics. But those are what play best in popular culture.

I haven't made any friends where I'm at. That may be because a majority of people here are business majors (we're known for our business school). Business majors tend to be the dumb partier stereotype.

I haven't encountered any bullying in college either though. So if you got that in high school, then you're home free.

It's not that bad, better than being home with mom and day by any means. Of course I'm going to a rather small college in a small town in southern Georgia, but still it's a good school and theres about 3,000 students with 1,000 living on campus. From what I've learned...

1. Find a group of friends, it's going to be lonely if you don't.

2. Clubs and classes aren't really the easiest way to make last friendships, but for casual acquantiance it works.

3. Accept that people are going to judge you and try to change, while still remaining true to yourself.

4. Some people drink and some people get laid, but do you want to hang with those kids anyway?

I am going to University this coming year as well...
Nervous actually but how should I do to be myself and able to fit in?

Meh....I've started Uni last fall, it's ok.... i can't say i socialize much, but i'm doing some efforts...talking with people in the student's cafe.... (good thing it's one cafe per department....so it's often people i have in my classes or that are interested in whatever related i have to say about em).

Also, since there's not a lot of french universities in North America ^^; most people from the province are bound to come either there, at engineering schools, business schools or something else close to to the city. I think i've ran into a few people i've been to school with before because of that ^^ (1 or 2 are from primary grade...). So it's not all bad....

i had the same problem last fall when i went to university and the best advice i can give is get a pack of cards,or hang around a pool table(if one is available) and people will inebitally ask for a game or something and then just generate conversation while you play ask them what their major is where their from that kind of stuff. you'll quickly realize that most people there are just as nervous as you.
that is assumeing your living on campus

if your not try eating in the cafateria for a few days and sitting next to people and asking those same kind of questions eventually people will get more comfortable around you and will open up more.

But if you really feel lonely, there's always WP:)

I'm generally not aware of the social life at my university, though I don't live in the dorms either. There are activities that go on, but I don't pay too much attention. Most of my social life is outside of college, like with friends, at church, etc. Going into college, I didn't really care about making friends, though some very good connections came about anyways. One friend knew me from high school, and we've talked and worked together much since then. I think once you meet one or two people you'll have an open door to many other people to socialize with.

There are definitely a few social advantages to college life. Sitting in my very first class session, I was amazed at how different it felt from high school. Everyone was quiet, undisruptive, and dare I say a little more conservative, and this was just the Freshmen introductory course! I think that's because most high school graduates in my area jump right into the local community college to try and earn far less expensive credits, and therefore probably a little more high school-like. People who are willing to pay for a university education tend to be very committed to what they are doing.

I think that the best thing you could do is focus on your area of study. If you have a passion for what you are pursuing, you'll do very well. If you're the type who gets a thrill out of learning (as many Aspies do), you'll find yourself doing abundantly well. This has been my main mental stabilizer for university life, just not worrying too much about pleasing people and being popular, and just preparing myself for what I want to be doing for a significant portion of my life. If it's something that interests you, it can at times feel very energizing.

My best advice for handling the social life is learn to be content with what you are given and the opportunity you have. I'm not saying you aren't, I just want to say that college is a great experience, and you're setting a precedence for the rest of your life. Strong social life or no, you have a chance to get something quite economically valuable. And it's those who work hard who will be chased by the employers after they graduate The friends will come too. You'll find a lot of like-minded people you can relate to and talk with.

Carpe diem!