Asperger's And Ph.D

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I was in the IB program in my high school and averaged a 4.263 GPA. I really love languages. I hear that college is a great place for autistic people, because we can spend our time researching our special interest. I did the hardest honor program on the face of the earth in high school and received straight A's and B's in it. and soon will receive my IB Diploma. In the program they required us to write 4,000 word papers and do tedious assignments. I didn't apply for the honors college at my college because I wanted to take a break from all that stuff, and I didnt see the necessity of honors college if I am in college anyways. I spend all my time at home studying Spanish and so forth and my undergrad will be Spanish (as of right now) and there is also a Graduate college on campus for Linguistics for people who specialize in foreign languages and language in general. I thought since I already did the IB, why not take the challenge of getting my Master's and if I like that why not get my Ph.D. I know it's hard, but I thought to myself, if I can do IB and have the work effort to make it through there, I can surely have the work effort to make it through higher and higher education. and If Temple Grandin can do it, and since all I do is talk about Spanish and languages and languages on and on, and since I like school, and since us aspies are called little professors, why not do it?


what do you all think?

Yes! Do it! How does "doctor" in front of your last name sound? I bet it sounds really good!

hahahaha

Its possible, but you are taking a tremendous risk here.

I think aspies do better in the science PhD career route where interpersonal skills aren't as critical. The humanities would be much more problematic. While you may do well in research, you might not have the political skill to land a professorship. If you can't cut it in academia you will have wasted many years of your life and have nothing to fall back on, having little qualification for anything in the private sector. In contrast, those pursueing PhDs in the sciences, usually have the option of going into industry (which is where I am headed).

Don't pursue a PhD in the humanities unless:

1. You are independently wealthy and don't need income from a job.

2. You have a wealthy spouse who can support you.

3. You have family connection with someone important in academia so that you can be assured a faculty position.

4. If you lack any of the above 3 options, you can still pursue your PhD. However you are essentially taking a lifelong vow of poverty and celibacy by pursuing your interest as you would a religious vocation.

Hmm you sound like you have a point MB. I am really interested in languages, but I see where problems can come if my social skills arent what people expect and if I dont do much social interaction. Well, I have no interest at science at all, and I suck at it. Now, I am not old enough yet to be independently wealthy lol, but no I probably wont be wealthy and I dont come from a wealthy family. I doubt I will have a wealthy spouse because wealthy women dont go with unwealthy men in the first place, and I'm an aspie guy on top of that and we rarely ever get spouses. and No i dont have a family connection with someone in the academia.
I don't plan on ever getting married so celibacy is not a concern, but poverty is one.

Hmm but I still believe I can do it. People doubted I could do the IB program because of my asperger's, but I will always keep what you said in mind as I go through college.

I'm getting my PhD right now. One of the great about graduate school (besides research, of course) is the fact that most of the people in higher academia are socially awkward in some way and assumes that everyone else is, too.
Not everyone is spectrum, but, in my experience, people are very accepting of neurodiversity (one of the students in my program does a lot of um and ah-ing and everyone else just accepts that it's part of who he is, not who he is in total).
Though, I am in the sciences, so I don't know how much the Humanities differ. But my roommates are in humanities and claim similar things.

Molecular is right, though. If you go in the humanities, be sure you want to end up in academia in a faculty position, or something- because there aren't to many other places to go (in a faculty position, you would end up doing research/teaching/talking about the areas that interest you all day, too).
At the same time, you can do a lot with linguistics and I wouldn't worry about that area too much if you go into research.

Bottom line, if its something you want to do, go for it. Grad school is hard work, but it's where I feel at home.
And undergrad actually did a lot for my social skills because I was able to find a group for one of my interests. I even mastered public speaking...well...mostly...

hmmm, so you can get paid by just doing research?

Aha! I studied the same thing in college. I loved Spanish, I picked it up quickly and especially liked the linguistics of it. How are you at conversational Spanish? How do you do (and enjoy) speaking with native speakers? Would others find you to be an engaging speaker, with lots of stories to tell as well as teach the language itself? If so - go for it!

I bombed when it came to conversational Spanish outside the classroom. The kids from Spain or South American on campus like to party hearty.. that's the social side of languages, of course. I also bombed when trying to teach in a class. One on one tutoring went fine - but it just didn't work out. Luckily - that was an undergrad degree only for me.

I ended up changing gears and became interested Law as a subject. The great part was - much of the job was spent alone in an office studying documents and typing up analysis. I had to account for every minute of my time - I liked doing that. People appreciate attention to detail in this humanities subject. Law has it's own language of sorts, and I ended up finding that to be more fun, and the pay is pretty good, too.

You guys have so much insight. I live in Arizona and I have conversations with Mexicans in Spanish and I love it. But I don't like to party. I went to Spain with my high school class and a the kids did was party and I hate partying, I stayed in the hotel the whole time they partied. But I like the history and linguistics part. and I've never tried tutoring or teaching it before. I had a teacher who offered tutoring but I didnt volunteer because I hated her, but we wont go there. I have met people who like languages and dont like partying, but for the most part they do, but most people party anyways.

I was doing an oral presentation in Spanish and I was asked if I'f ever like to visit a foreign pais y dije la maestra que me gustaria, y ella me pregunto por que, y dije porque me gusta hablar la idioma, y ella dijo "No te gusta la cultura o fiesta", y yo dije "si", pero yo solo menti. She thought it was weird. But thats cuz im aspie I guess

"hmmm, so you can get paid by just doing research?"

Depends on how good the research is, and what the research is (basically, how it is funded).

But usually not as a PhD, unless the research is not at a university or it is during a post doc.

PhDs are usually overqualified for research assistantships in the Lab of another PhD. I don't know how research assistantships work outside of the sciences, but I know that linguistics is covered in "cognitive science" and there might be opportunities there...

I know of very few people in academia who can get away with not teaching, you have to have a LOT of funding and usually a pretty big name. The one I can think of who I know has a "in every single psychology 101 text book" big name. Most professors get the means to do research by teaching.

If you're doing research that is in the more private sector or for something like NIH, it's possible.

I'd talk to the advisors at your college (I think you mentioned you were going there) and the actual people on the area of your interest to find out what sort of jobs people with the degree you're going for get. Also talk to the disability support office.

I know that I am going to end up teaching at a University, but I've just decided to take that as it comes.

When I signed up for a science related graduate program, I couldn't think of anything better to do with my life, and I scored maybe 95th percentile or so on the physics GRE. In retrospect, it turned out well, but it could have backfired if I had insufficient GPA to complete the Ph.D., which I almost did. Failing grad school is probably worse for your career than just stopping at the bachelor's degree.

I didn't have a wife or girlfriend pressuring me to earn a lot of money right at that moment, and I don't think graduate school will help you at all with finding a spouse. It's a neutral thing at best in this regard, as the bar for making a good impression on someone gets continually raised the further you go and science stuff doesn't make for good conversation anyway, for the most part. I might sound really smart for a high school graduate, but women will say "Oh, you couldn't be getting your Ph.D.". Well, science is hard, in the sense that you can't just make something up and call it good like you can with religion or politics.

Interpersonal skills still have importance in the sciences, unfortunately. It's still a game of who you know here as anywhere else, and I'm barely scraping by on this. One of the difficulties I have had is with getting people to care about what I did, and without outside financial support, I would not have been able to complete my degree or have the tools I needed to continue my work after graduating. The social difficulties of one of my close advisors may have also alienated some of my committee members and skewed the office politics out of my favor. I can see that being socially limited makes for having to do a lot of work with searching patents and other literature, just to keep up with knowing the stuff that others know without as much effort through their relationships with field leaders. Oh, and the social skills thing will still get in the way when you meet a potential spouse who has/is getting a Ph.D. in your same field.

I don't think I would make it as a professor or a strict academic, and I don't think I want to try for that. One of the really frustrating things about having a Ph.D. is that I am in a way both under and over qualified for most jobs. If I were to apply for a different job in the U.S., for example chopping wood or driving a truck, or join the military, I might want to not disclose the Ph.D. in the same sense that I would not volunteer information about having a criminal record if I'd had one.

Could you actually talk to people in Spain? I haven't taken Spanish since high school but I understand everything you wrote except that I can't remember what the verb "mentir" means, but I had major problems understanding people (especially the Catalan in Barcelona) when I went there, which was right after I graduated.

I'm sure you could hold down a Ph.D program, but take care of first things first. I knew I wanted to get a Ph.D at the same time or earlier as you, and in undergrad I took that for granted and didn't apply myself in things that failed to interest me. My GPA suffered as a result (although it wasn't horrible it wasn't up to normal grad school standards) and it took me several years to get the experience I needed to compensate for that. I graduated undergrad in 05 and just now finished my first year in master's.

It'd be great if this works out for you - how great to have a career in something you have a great interest in and you're top of the class, it sounds like.

I like how you just cruised into writing in Spanish. La fiesta es la cultura, en parte, no?

I do like the other poster's idea of checking with the university in to the various career paths for your course of studies - and then consider if the career part is a good fit. You definitely should consider trying out tutoring / teaching to see what you think of that before going too far, I'd suggest.

Some folk become translators for technical manuals, things like that. What do you see yourself actually doing after you get the degree? Have a couple different ideas in mind in case "the one" doesn't work out. And - the reality of it, how easy is it to start up the career ladder? Check into what other recent Ph.D grads have ended up doing for a living. Research the "after-student" life of others with the degree you're aiming to get. Again, if you like what you see - go for it!

Spain was a year ago in June, and I didn't go around talking to random people. But to answer your question, NO. I had trouble understanding what they said. It was easier for me to talk in Spanish to the tour guides, maybe it's because they knew I was a foreigner. Mentir=to lie. You dont need to understand Catalan to speak Spanish, and I've heard Catalan when I was in Barcelona and it sounded weird. I find it easier to talk to the Mexicans, maybe it's because I feel more comfortable and I am used to them. I am not fluent yet, but that doesnt matter because I will be soon. and I took college spanish in high school. I also like Italian too.

Sorry I wasn't implying you need to understand Catalan to speak Spanish, I was just curious because I had major trouble with it. I've never been to Mexico but I've been to Costa Rica (shortly before graduation, when I was 17) and I understood everything there, and in Spain it was much easier in Madrid and Extremadura region than Barcelona and Santander (which probably had some Basque influence).

I I am also sorry if I came off mad. I wasnt at all.