Undereducated and Aspergers?

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There's a difference between being educated and being smart.

Yes, I would think so. It seems to be human nature to take implicit learning for granted, and to see any inconsistency in it as character flaw rather than unequally distributed talents. (You may safely assume that at the time being, I see my failure in school as being caused by not 'getting' some of the things needed in life in time.)

I didn't finish high school, I left as soon as I turned 18. I had no problems with most of the classes, but I just couldn't wrap my head around several concepts I was supposed to learn. I was taking an engineerings course, which was interesting on it's own, until they started submersing us in formulas and weird symbols. The math involved I could handle, but I didn't understand what their purpose was, the teacher wouldn't answer my questions because asking questions in class is apparently "disruptive".

I tried several courses after leaving school, but faced similar issues so now I'm here, unemployed and more confused than ever, steadily forgetting everything I knew about engineering.

I wouldn't say undereducated, as school offered me nothing in regards to [subjective] intellectual development.

I would prefer to say that I am "self educated" rather than under educated. I don't believe I am under educated, but I have no university degree and I dropped out of high school at the end of my junior year to get married. Much later in life, at about the age of forty-one, I finally got up my nerve and enrolled in Community College. I thought everyone was going to be smarter than me but soon found out that was far from true. I excelled in all of my classes, taking two and sometimes three per semester hoping to earn an Associates Degree and then possibly transfer to a four year college. At about that time I began to have very severe anxiety and panic disorder but plowed through anyway. Only a few credits away from my degree I decided that the stress wasn't worth it, especially when I gave serious thought to why earning a degree was so important to me. When I realized that having a degree for the sake of having a degree (so other people would have more respect for me) was my prime motivator, I called it quits. OnceI had proven to myself that I was capable of earning a degree, having one didn't seem so important anymore. All of this took place in the eighties, before I knew about autism and asperger's.

Last edited by cosmiccat on 09 Jan 2010, 11:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.

my education pretty much ends at the 9th grade.

You always have the choice to continue your education independently, after completing your formal education.

I have a Bachelor degree in science (which was not the most appropriate for my personality profile) so I have retrained and am now fully qualified in a profession that utilizes my skill set and is a great match to my personality (not least AS) profile.

Always remember;

'Schooling should never be allowed to interfere with Education'


Good luck