Autism Issues in Academic Positions

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I'm sorry if this is "derailing" but I had a very interesting conversation last night with a young man who was an HIV researcher, about what it is like to work in medical research and what elements of it may actually suit an autistic - he mentioned setting his own hours and times so long as he got his work done, which for him meant coming in earlier than everyone else when it was quiet. He also mentioned the ability to set up his own structure in the lab, there was no rigid punch-a-clock structure or emphasis on everyone being the same. He was left to his own devices and had a PhD supervisor to contact if he had problems.
I was very much interested because the intellectually stimulating part of higher education and subsequent work - especially research, so this conversation was lucky - always appealed to me, but I had discounted it because I cannot "fit in." I may not be able to stick to other people's times and demands, so I had essentially counted myself out of education higher than a basic work-ready bachelor degree.
Plus with so much trouble working among autistics, higher education may be out of our reach financially (another big problem for me - the idea of not working for four years odd, racking up 60K in student loans and then getting out and not being able to find any work anyway scared me off pretty well.)
So it's interesting to be getting a different idea from autistics in academia.

There's so much I could say about the change in cost structures of academic study and the undue impact on particular groups of students. There have been huge impacts on access, equity and the ideal of meritocracy in higher education. I really really feel for young students who don't have a background of economic advantage and face that huge burden of debt with no way of knowing the future employment prospects. I couldn't have coped with the strain of that, and in my time as a student, I didn't have to, as there were nominal fees for everyone then, as well as scholarships, hardship grants,
and bursaries (for some). It was affordable for almost anyone. Many students fully self-funded themselves without going into debt by working at part-time jobs or during term holidays. The whole system then was founded upon the notion of higher education as being right up there in terms of "social capital" - that the benefits were not merely individual ones but had huge flow on effects for the whole culture. I just feel like crying at the waste of potential now and huge burdens placed on gifted young people who have little money and other forms of disadvantage. It really upsets me.

In this day and age there is no such thing as a "work ready bachelor degree" it's a myth that many students get sucked into. You need postgraduate qualifications, industry certification or relevant work experience to be "work-ready" as bachelors degrees only teach you basic generic skills....

Contrary to the allegations of Johnny, there are many academics with Asperger's who succeed mightily, "executive functioning" be damned!

Well said. My son-in-law (Aspergers) is an electrical engineer, a professor in his discipline and head of department in his faculty which is a highly ranked university in the international tables. He has been in academia for decades now. The only other job he ever had was an after school job as a teenager, (he built coffins!) He attends sabbaticals overseas without any difficulty, and it is nonsense to suggest that this level of competence is impossible for all Asperger's people.

In fact, if one goes into certain departments, one finds professors who are obvious Aspies, seem "awkward" socially, yet are esteemed colleagues, because they are left alone to pursue their intellectual proclivities when not actually teaching. And, yet, they are collegial when collegiality is required.

They might start off as seeming "disorganized." But, to some, this is actually an "organized mess" which the professor adjusts well to, and which the flexible students, knowing they will benefit from his/her wisdom, will just laugh off (i.e., think of the absent-minded professor stereotype).

For others, though, they realize that they should evolve as far as disorganization is concerned. This, in their own fashion, through experience, become more organized and are able to actually use their eccentric quirks to their advantage.

From this link: https://thethirdglance.wordpress.com/20 ... workplace/

It's interesting that she doesn't disclose, but still communicates differences freely. It seems that most people around her know that she is different, but the stigma of autism isn't in effect since it isn't explicitly autism. Her way of handling it is great. I think this kind of technique should be widely taught and learned. I only began accepting my autism recently, but I have always been "taught" (read: criticised) that I needed to conform and hide whatever diverges. This is basically the opposite of Third Glances's approach to fitting autism into academia.

And on a related topic: What about the importance of mentoring for academics? Given the lack of supports for autistics, especially in academia, a strong faculty mentor is especially important.

My parents were both college professors. My dad was almost certainly on the spectrum. One forgets, that just because one is impaired in some areas does not mean they are unable to to contribute. My dad was a brilliant guy and a great teacher--his students clearly loved him. He was also eccentric, didn't get along well with authority, and was completely mystified by things like tact and office politics. If you saw The Imitation Game, that was pretty much what my dad was like, but heterosexual. Luckily, his department chairman liked him and protected him from difficult interactions with the board of directors. His social impairments eventually got the better of him, though, which just shows even talented people can have significant disabilities. He tried to get his PhD, and did very well in the written and oral exams, but so offended the dissertation committee that they failed him when he got to the defense stage (PhD science candidates have to defend their dissertations and show that their study methodology and conclusions were good). He was never able to get a position at a big university without it.

My mom was luckier--she had a mentor that helped her get through the writing and defense of her dissertation. I think having an NT ally like a mentor or chairman is very important for an Aspergian academic, to help them navigate complicated social interactions and departmental politics. A helpful teaching assistant can help manage executive function issues like organization and punctuality. We can demonstrate our value to a workplace in a lot of ways, through our ability to remember and transmit vast amounts of information, and make unconventional connections and detect patterns that others might miss--having disability does not equal inability.

In some disciplines, and especially in mathematics, being an Aspie or having some other neurological difference that enhances people's ability to hyper-focus and to obsessively search for patterns can nearly be declared as a precondition for achieving interesting academic results.

Read https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Mathematici ... 0801885876

There is also no shortage of mathematicians who have left established academia, because they are incapable of dealing with the wider social environment.

Being self-diagnosed as an aspie, I really do not want to get an official diagnosis because it can greatly affect my career plans going forward. I have taught chemistry at both the community college and university levels. It is rewarding to do, but does have its share of challenges, much like any other job. I disliked being forced into various committees, as they can often take away time that is better spent upon actual educational issues that I was there for. The thing I hated the most was the yearly self-evaluation form that I had to fill out. Pure NT BS.

Brian Cox, quoted from a Guardian article 28 June 2016:

“One of the things that annoys me most, and I think is an unfortunate reflection on the way that schools are conditioning students to obsess about exams is that I will be teaching my first years about relativity and they’ll keep asking, ‘Is this in the end-of-year exams?’” Cox told Radio Times.

“I say, ‘I’m not telling you. I’m teaching you to be a physicist, not pass exams.’ They are supposed to be learning about nature. If they go to work for BAE Systems on the ejector seat of a Eurofighter, at some point someone’s going to say, ‘Is that safe, that ejector seat?’

Of course students have always taken end of year exams into consideration (amongst a mix of factors) just as I once did and no doubt other contributors to this thread did. However the whole context and ethos was different, as universities had not yet absorbed the market ideology of becoming educational supermarkets selling academic commodities to consumers according to their ability to pay. Given that it is a pronounced AS trait to love knowledge and learning for its own intrinsic value, (and that had a flow on effect to the way I encouraged students to consider, inquire, reflect and question as part of their learning), ASD academic staff might share Cox's viewpoint perhaps more strongly than other faculty staff.

^ I love that guy, all his material is gold, especially the DVD stuff. "Wonders of the Universe" is enough to make you want to study science.

I think it depends. Education in some ways has become what has been described as a self-perpetuating system. It is endless, there is always one more qualification you need before you can do anything, and once you get it, you're overqualified and restricted to teaching others the material. Which is fine if that's the goal, but if you were looking at education in a pragmatic sense and hoping to use it to work, it's a problem.
I've known people in passing who have done certain bachelor degrees - such as environmental engineering, civil engineering, paramedics, nursing, policing etc - who have then used these qualifications on their own to enter jobs and work successfully in their fields without postgraduate qualifications. But I have known others - especially in the sciences it's sad to say - that fall into this well of endless school, racking up endless dept through bachelors, then on to PhD and if it's medicine you run into internship, residency, then the complications of securing a fellowship, then specialty etc, it ends up another 13 years. Unless you start that straight out of school with never a hitch, you'd be retiring before you saw any results and I think that will deter otherwise capable minds from even starting - because what's the point? With the back paying all the debts you'll never make real money (unless you're an anaesthetist ) and all you do is study and stress, never actually purely engage in the work.
But then again, it's not just higher education. Recently I was interested in jobs involving animals, and looked up the required qualifications for these jobs - I found you had to have an Animal Services certificate II, and when I looked up what was in that, it was honestly just teaching people to feed animals, give them water, pick up their poo, keep them clean and groomed, and keep their quarters clean. This "certificate" would have taken several weeks and $600, when I'm sure if you got anyone of a reasonable intelligence in there and just showed them what to do in the space of an afternoon, they wouldn't have a problem.
In the social context, this is putting even basic education like a certificate II out of reach for poor people. And if you can't afford these silly prerequisite qualifications, you don't even get an interview, thus you don't get the job, thus you stay poor.
I don't think an autistic mind is incapable of higher education at all. If you pick your field well to suit what you can and cannot do, you can even excel. But there are barriers like the one above that will stop many people from even entering, or as I had done, investigate and then discount it altogether.
But it seems like we can't avoid it. Maybe entering into higher education would be worthwhile, costs and all, if you cannot get a basic job like working with animals without multiple expensive qualifications anyway.

"This 'certificate' would have taken several weeks and $600, when I'm sure if you got anyone of a reasonable intelligence in there and just showed them what to do in the space of an afternoon, they wouldn't have a problem. In the social context, this is putting even basic education like a certificate II out of reach for poor people."

This kind of "occupational licensing" has been recognized as a problem for centuries, and it's become big legal news in the US in the last few years. It's a major civil rights issue, because "insiders" always want to put up high barriers to entry so as to reduce competition, and if possible, make as much money from the (parasitic) certification process as they do from the actual work itself.

There was a big court case recently about the legality of a regulation that forced (mostly poor) people to pay a licensing fee to be able to braid hair in their own homes for money.

<sarcasm>Well, thank God the law is protecting us from rogue hair-braiders.</sarcasm>

In days of old, licenses like this were called "guild fees," and were for the exact reason you mention--to control access to a profession and rake in the cash. Certainly one needs licensing for dangerous or costly repair work, but some of this is ridiculous. Education is returning to the point of being the privilege of a few. Ironically, being a professor is a crap way to make money for the amount of education required. My mom was making about the same as a plumber even when a full professor, and had to go to school for about three times as long as a plumber's apprenticeship. I dropped out of the PhD program and went into private industry. With a bachelor's degree, I was making as much as she was with a PhD when she retired.

What's even worse are diploma mills. These look like regular universities but lack accreditation, so they charge tuition but graduate students without the skills to get a job. Accreditation is a review system in which a professional organization deems a college program fit to train students in their field of choice. Lack of accreditation is a serious red flag indicating a scam that is out to take students' money and give them nothing in return. Trump University was unaccredited and is in the middle of a class action lawsuit for defrauding students.

Engineers, paramedics and nurses do internships. For instance a graduate nurse or paramedic can't work unless they get a hospital internship which are highly competitive. I have a nephew who studied engineering/nanotechnology and was unable to find work. He eventually had to do an unpaid internship in an electricity power company. He works as a an engineer but not in the field he studied.

Police officers are not required to do a bachelors degree

In New York City, cops have to have at least 2 years of college (university to you folks outside the US).