Academic difficulties, familiar?

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I've always had a very odd time with academic pursuits. There are subjects I'll absorb just by glancing at them, and others that just won't stick even if I spend loads of time cramming. My teachers were perplexed at my vastly differing grades; they said a good student would tend to have top marks in most anything, and a poor one low marks in most everything.

This was bad enough that even after going back to school, I wasn't able to qualify for university. I've been very fortunate, however. I met someone who saw something in me and was able to get me a job at a big-name company. After that I've never really had trouble with my career, and in the IT line of work I'm in, most people here don't seem to care about your academic background, or lack thereof.

I was diagnosed with Asperger's (still in use then here, 9 years ago) at age 30, and it has explained many things, perhaps including this.

Has anyone else had a similar experience?

I found myself having totally various results in maths. It even puzzled maths teachers in school. One complained to my parents one year that he didn't understand it. I would learn and get the subject area we were studying and really graspmit. Then one day it was as if I have never learnt the subject area befoee and he would have to start again with me from scratch!

It is only looking back that I realize that I would have to learn subjects at least twice. And my results? Maths I just could not get how varied my results actually were. One year I would get a reasonably good result and the next would be poor. And it even puzzled me as I would not be doing anything different from one year to the next.
But I have worked something out. My mind works in picture form, so when doing maths equasions I would shift to picture form and count dots in set patterns. I was basically working in my mind in base six rather then in decimals for smaller amounts but would shift to base 5 when using decimals, as I would be using multiples if dot patterns in my mind. Yet for other maths solutions, I would use my outer brain which worked differently, and somehow work things out conventionally.
But using my deep thinking inner brain in pictures, I could usually give well thought out correct answers, but no way could I show my workings out. Yet if I used my quicker thinking but shallow thinking outer mind part if my brain, I could show the workings out but not be able to think in any depth. So with this part of my brain, if I drummed in the method, I could show workings out and get better results because the workings out themselves would give marks. Were I had issues is where I needed to use both parts of my brain at the same time because I would be using two different ways to come to the solution and certain subjects like mathematics... It would give mixed and confusing results to others, even though to me it made sense. But I never knew how to explain how I worked it out to teachers, which really puzzled them!
I will give an examplle. I sat exams for a B-tec nat. dip. in General Engineering and basically messed my maths up and failed it getting 9 out of 18 units. (It was all maths on the course despite it supposed to have been 40% practical. It was more like 90% theory and maths). Now I then went straight to re-sit my GCSE maths and had 100% in it, within months of the two occasions.
Now yes, the maths in GCSE is easier, but it was the basics of maths in method form where I was failing in the B-TEC but I was able to regrasp the basics again at GCSE level and get a perfect result. They had never seen a perfect paper before where i resat from the looks of it. But ask me from one ocdasion to the next what I did different, other then to go back over the methods again... Well. To be honest with you. In the b-tec... I was having to go back to basics again and again and failing.
Wat was different? The whole enviroment between the collage and the night classes that I later sat. The college was full of people my age, and the whole enviroment was really stressful. The nigt classes were not. They were relatively quiet. Well behaved. Various ages of people in there... I was able to grasp my thoughts and apply them which gave me the 100% result. Way was 100% so rare? Because GCSE's always included a trick question and I saw the wuestion which came up in a mock exam in school and I remembered it and knew the trick method to work it out. Hence why 100% was so rare, but 99% was not exactly common, but out of the high achievers, 99% is what the majority were getting as a maximum mark.

And if you asked me to do my maths again today, forget it! Hahahahahahaha!

Academic difficulties was one of the "markers" for Aspie that alerted me to my likely diagnosis. My grades depended mostly on instructor and outside stress. I was mostly at the VERY top of the class (no studying) at the onset of college, but later would come in at bottom (and drop). I think a lot was EF challenges as more lab and homework was due. For some reason physics was hard for me in general; I don't know why --- one professor was lousy, but the other was fine and I think I still struggled. I enjoyed the labs, but had a REALLY hard time getting there. I had significant financial and family stress.

At work I'm an achiever unless the stress (social, operational) increases and then I want to shutdown. My instinct is: If I can't do my job well, I don't want to do it. Not that I'm a black and white thinker, naaaaah.

Instructor/teacher quality was certainly a factor. I remember that we used to have a really great chemistry teacher, who was able to engage and amuse the whole class. Then he got promoted, and in his place was someone who was really dry and boring. As I recall, the entire class dropped at least one level in grades with that change. So not just us aspies.

I was at a school where to be average was to be above average compared to the general population . I was a mediocre student . It's very probable I had what we call in the UK a 'learning difficulty' , but this was at a time when being of average or above intelligence meant it was very rare to be seen as having 'academic difficulties' .

I can tell you one thing for sure ... an Aussie should never be taught French by an Aussie . I took it for 5 years, got a B, not bad at all. Went to Paris, and all that could be heard were fits of laughter over my Aussie/French annihilation of what should have been a beautiful language ...have merci is all I can say.

The exact same thing was the problem with me. People would say "You are both a genius and totally ret*d, all at once!"

Another reason disability is a living nightmare.