Are any of you on disability services

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I had a midterm a couple of days ago and it totally made my day. The two great things about that midterm are:

1. Some students had to go to the disability center to take it
2. I got an A on it.

Now, can you try and guess why is 1 so great? I will wait for you. Guess!! !

I bet you got it wrong.

The reason 1 is so great is that I was NOT one of those students.

Well, I never would be: I think registering for disaiblity services and/or getting extra time would invalidate anything I ever accomplish. You see, what would happen if someone without disability gets extra time -- by being stubborn and refusing to return the test when they are asked to? Thats right, they would get an F for the class (best case scenario) and get expelled from the university (worst case scenario). So the students that are on disability they are basically having their performance match the performance of the students that are expelled -- except that they aren't expelled because they are on disability.

To put it another way, lets say a student that is on disability has 4.0 GPA, and the student that is not on disability has 1.75 GPA (not that I would ever have 1.75 GPA -- my current GPA is 3.95 -- and let me reiterate, I am NOT on disability) now let me ask you: who is the better student? I would say a student with 1.75 GPA is a better student. Because you see, even though 1.75 GPA is awful, at least I know they didn't do any WORSE than that. But, as far as the disabled student with 4.0, well, that student would have gotten an F in every single class they took if it wasn't for their disability -- in particular, they would of gotten an F for the fact that they cheated by staying extra time -- so their GPA is 0 as far as I am concerned.

In any case, like I said, I never took extra time. But you know what really made my day this exam? That some other students did!! ! You see, even though I am not registered on disability services, I don't wear a T-shirt saying "I am not registered in disability services" so how do I know my professors know that? What if they assume I am registered simply because I keep talking about having Asperger? Well, the test that happened two days ago drew home a point that I am NOT registered. Because you see, some students did go to disability services to take their test, and I was not one of thiem Thats so super exciting.

Let me tell you one more exciting thing about that test. So apparently some students didn't do so well, so the professor had to curve the grades a huge deal. She said 70% and higher is an A, 50% to 69% is a B, 30% to 49% is a C, and below 30% is an F, and students who got below 50% should go talk to her about how to do better in future. Well, guess what, I got 85%. Thats so super exciting. Unfortunately she didn't tell us how many students got what, other than its mixed, and I guess I could read between the lines that some students got below 50% for sure and probably some got below 30%. Well, I hope that there were a lot of those students (not that they are any worse than the students that went to disability services) that would totally make my day if thats the case

That's an awesome GPA! I had the same attitude as you about disability services in undergrad. I registered, but almost never took the extra time because it felt alienating. Also, I wanted to be judged as equal to my peers and not have special privileges.

Then in graduate school...well let's just say extra time is my best friend lol. The workload and responsibilities are overwhelming for any human being, so it becomes a question of pride vs. stress. Plus, faculty are very understanding and the college has disability policies at my back.

The bottom line for me is, if I deny myself the option for accommodations, I'm ironically alienating myself from my peers who embrace disability services. It's no longer a question of pride but instead: do I actually need extra time? So if you feel that you don't need it and have a great GPA, then obviously there's no reason to register!

Then why did you register? To me it feels like registering "without" taking extra time is even worse than registering and taking it. Because you have the "worst of both worlds". You registered -- so you can't ever prove to anyone you didn't take extra time -- yet you didn't take extra time, so you didn't get any benefits out of it. So its like you just registered for the purposes of shaming yourself, without any benefits. Why did you do it?



The phrase "for ANY human being" in the quote above is the exact reason why you should NOT have taken extra time. Since its hard for everyone, they usually inflate grades in graduate school. So even if you don't do well, you will still get a B, most likely. If you really piss someone off you might get a C, but that would only be the case if you are doing much worse than the rest of the class, I mean MUCH worse. And you said yourself its hard for everyone, so I doubt you would get a C.

So basically you want an extra time so that you can get an A rather than the B. But I thought you told me you don't care about pride? Well, wanting to get an A *is* about pride, since grades don't matter in grad school (when you apply for postdocs they don't even ask for a transcript). So, since you care about pride, you should realize that getting an A while taking extra time feels much worse than getting a B without extra time. The extra time would invalidate whatever satisfaction you might have felt out of an A.

Disability Services didn't exist when I went to Uni. I didn't even know I was autistic, so I wouldn't have asked for help.

Basically, I registered so I have the option available. Sometimes I used it and sometimes I didn't.

You don't need it available. If you are not grossly unprepared, its a safe bet you will maintain 3.0 without any extra time. And in graduate school it doesn't matter how much above 3.0 you are. When you apply for postdoc nobody will ask for your transcript. You do need to have 3.0 though -- so that they won't kick you out of school -- but given the way they inflate grades, you will be above 3.0, I promise.