Anyone else who didn't graduate at 22 ?

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I heard about an actress (I forgot her name) who took what she called "think pills," her name for the anti-seizure medication Dilantin, because she had seizures as a child.

Not everyone graduated at 22

Not everyone went to college

Not everyone started college at 18

Not everyone took four years to graduate

There are seven billion people in the world

I never went to university. University is possibly not seen as quite the presumed career path for "anybody who's anybody" in the UK, and I don't think UK working-class kids bond with the schools as readily as most kids seem to do in the US. I met with some opposition when I began expressing doubts about going - I was at a "good" school where although the work towards the end was getting tougher all the time for me, the general message I was getting from my teachers was that I should redouble my efforts to get in.

But I figured it might be better to just go for a job that didn't need a degree. I'd managed to get good basic qualifications by really focussing during the year in which I took them (after a few years of floundering precariously) but the advanced level stuff at school felt like it was taking me out of my depth, and I didn't like the prospect of trying to float in an even tougher academic environment in a completely unfamiliar place in a new town (I was considering going to the local university but I was advised that they had an unstated idea that students shouldn't stay in their home town and that it might prejudice my chances of getting a place). I had a girlfriend in my home town, my friends were there, I was enjoying my life outside school and didn't want to leave it. I wasn't diagnosed with ASD at that time, but looking back I can now see how my autism would have given me more trouble with all that change than a NT would have suffered. At the time my reasoning was simply "I hate school, the work's already too hard, so why jump into something that looks like it'd be even worse?"

I don't think the idea of a career figured in my life. I just needed an income, and work was the necessary evil required so I could buy food, shelter and a few toys. I've never defined myself by my job. I might have felt ashamed of myself if I'd ended up cleaning toilets, but I ended up in the middle of the food chain as a research technician. The consultant who interviewed me seemed to think I was a fool for wanting a job below what he figured I could get, but he hired me anyway.

Back in the 1990s my ex-wife couldn't understand why I didn't want to do a degree while I held down the job. But what was the point? I had twice as much money as I needed to support myself, being fairly frugal, and I was repelled by the idea of spending even more of my time doing work that somebody else had set for me. She knew I was intelligent. But I do much better proactively studying my own choice of subjects at my own pace to enable me to directly do the things I want to do. And I never particularly wanted to learn about biochemistry. I'd also seen the expectations they laid on the academic staff - sure, they were in some ways better treated, but it was a given that an academic wouldn't insist on a proper lunch break or to go home at some standard, agreed hour if it could mean failing to meet management expectations. The job had to come first. Yeuk! To some extend the management also tried to lay those expectations on technical staff, but I think they knew they were trying it on, they weren't going to get that furious at a technician who went home at their allotted finishing time. Of course they probably wouldn't promote them either, but like I say, I didn't need more money, and it wouldn't have been a lot more either.

I've also seen how a university did their best to ignore one Aspie's disability, and it was only thanks to her mother's determination that they had to back down. Every new term they reset the clock and the battle would have to begin all over again. Very stressful for mother and daughter alike. I never had an informed parent to stick up for me like that, my parents didn't know the first thing about university or the politics of getting authority figures to stop being a**holes.

So that's why I didn't graduate at 22, and why I didn't even join up in the first place. I've occasionally wondered if I might have been happier if I'd had a go, but I think the balance of probabilities is firmly on the "I made the right decision" side.

24 , BA cognitive science, UCSD

2007


When I was flunking out of structural engineering (a four year process ) , I once gained fifteen pounds in one quarter . Emotional overeating


Who cares?



Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 2012 gender identity


2012, five years after 2007







Even a PhD in astrophysics would have gotten me nowhere vocationally



Homophobia



f**k mister redelings

Graduated at 30, BS in geography.

It took me 6 years to graduate. I changed majors a couple times and was also going through serious issues.

when i see all these successful aspies with their professional degrees and professional positions, i feel like a staring at people using doorknobs and not being able to figure out how they do that.

I graduated at 23 and experienced the burnout thing so often described here within 20 years. May have achieved a professional degree and held a professional position, but never earned a salary above the national average, and here I am living on £900 per month, which puts me well below the official UK poverty line. Could be a lot worse though, and I don't regret dropping out of the rat race one little bit.

I took the long, scenic route through school and changed majors a couple times as well.

I was 25 finishing my Bachelor’s, and feel college was a tremendous asset to who I am today for reasons academic and otherwise. Lifelong learning continues as an autodidact.

It is refreshing to read similar stories...especially for those of us who didn’t have a name to put to our struggles earlier on.

I wish I was as flexible a Gumby as Flagreen

i wish i was as organized and energetic and not in need of sleep as is required to succeed in school and work. i just wasn't made for this world.

Never been in a university.
Graduated college at age 20. In spite of quitting school for 2 years.

Because I took a 2 year course instead of 4 or so. Motive is purely financial -- from where I live, people here would rather end school as soon as possible just so they can work and help the household.
And 2 years of school didn't exists back in this country's system. So the average age of graduation here was at 16-20. These people aren't geniuses by any means.


If it were my way, without any of these variables; I would've graduated at 24 or so -- and took a more specialist path than the current one I'm in right now.

Gained Number Post Count (1).
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Lose more time here - Updates at least once a week.

I'm going to graduate college at 21 1/2, but that is because I'm getting a 2-year degree. There are few 4-year degrees, even near me for what I want to study. I'm only going to college for horticulture because my local trade schools don't offer it.