• 6 Posts
  • 21 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 9th, 2023

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  • I got my PhD in engineering just fine. Had to push myself to make a few connections and meet regularly with my advisor, etc., but doing research was really well-suited to my hyper-focus tendencies.

    However the opportunities I had tutoring/teaching did not appeal to me at all. I pulled it off, and I enjoyed sharing my knowledge and being the “expert” in a room full of freshman students, but I would be highly stressed all morning in anticipation, and then out of commission for the rest of the day.

    So, I opted to move into industry mainly to remove the expectation of teaching regular courses and the dependency on networking to successfully claim grant funding and collaborate with other academics. (Also money)

    Several autistic-spectrum friends also left academia but stayed in research in some form, and are doing really well. A couple stayed in academia. One is doing great, and the other basically destroyed his marriage due to the stress.

    Probably depends a lot on the specific responsibilities of your chosen academic field as well as your individual point on the spectrum.














  • One thing I've started to notice in here is a ND person will make some joke based on typical Autistic dry humor (overly literal or pragmatic, etc.) or just putting a light-hearted spin on the situation, and some NT will swoop in to attack that person for "gatekeeping" or "mocking", not realizing this was an ND attempting some inside humor directed at fellow NDs.

    Feels bad finally finding a community where we can safely share our traumas and quirks and insights, and then "allies" feel the need to attack and berate us when we're just Autistic and just socializing in our weird way.

    Please be nice and don't shame our odd humor. We're struggling already as-is.

    For example, a light-hearted ND joke here, immediately attacked by someone who doesn't realize this community is exactly where that kind of humor is very common: https://communick.news/comment/316930