I am autistic. I am a graduate student in library and information sciences. And I’ve just finished my first semester. I want to take a moment to reflect on this experience, and share some of the things I’ve learned.
Start the accommodation process early. Having diagnosis paperwork ready helps here, since self-identifying isn’t valid in the eyes of ableist organizations like universities. By having initial conversations with the accessibility office even before I was accepted, and during the registration process and throughout the semester, I was able to get my support accommodations adapted to meet my changing circumstances. There isn’t a lot they can do to help, but they did try, and sometimes it was very helpful.
Check in with professors regularly. I always made sure I checked in with professors in both of my classes at least once a week. I told them which readings I was doing and which assignments I was working on. Whenever I encountered difficulties, such as the reading being too much to keep up with or when a teammate on a group project wasn’t pulling their weight, I already had the rapport established to have my concerns taken seriously. I had a track record of communicating that I was doing the work, and that goes a long way.
Be careful not to get sucked into the material if it’s a SpIn. I have absolutely adored the material we’ve learned this semester, and one of the greatest challenges for me has been to not engage with the material as deeply as I would like. At the beginning of the semester, I had a tendency to spend hours on the readings, pouring over the details and writing extensive notes and doing additional research on my own. That was rewarding, but it wasn’t sustainable. I had to practice engaging with the material for less time at less depth in order to keep up. But for things that particularly caught my interest, I kept notes, and now that the semester is wrapping up I can go back and dive deeper into those topics on my own time.
Be careful with group work. Autism includes social and relational challenges in its definition. I am lucky to be in an online-only program, and all of my collaboration with teammates was text-based. This worked great for my communication style, allowing me to carefully craft messages that would be well-received by my teammates. Dealing with neurotypicals and trying to imagine how they will interpret messages is exhausting, and I found this to be much more taxing than the work on the assignments themselves. It can also be a struggle to understand the group dynamics, to not come off as bossy or to be too harsh with those who aren’t pulling their own weight. Being able to talk about those situations with professors, the accessibility office, and my social support network was very helpful for this.
Always have an alternative. Sometimes the effort of participating in a group project is simply more than I can manage, so having permission beforehand to switch to solo work is a reassurance. That has lessened the stress for me so that some group work actually becomes possible because the (unused) alternative exists. Similarly for class presentations and video submissions, having gotten pre-approval for using AAC instead of my direct voice definitely decreased the stress of those assignments. It’s important to note that none of these accommodations would make my workload easier. Both solo work and using AAC are actually more work than if I were able to complete the assignments as they were intended. But despite the additional work, they were less stressful.
Pacing is important. Getting a head start can be helpful, doing a little each day can be helpful, setting aside time on the weekends to catch up can be helpful, decreasing the depth of engagement with the material can be helpful. Putting all of the assignments on my calendar so I can see at a glance what big projects I need to be spending time on was very handy for making sure I wasn’t cramming right before deadlines, or spending too much time working ahead on one class to the detriment of the other.
My conclusion is that, even though it was a lot of work returning to the academy after 20 years, I have the tools and support structures I need to survive and thrive in this environment. Final grades aren’t in, but I’m expecting A’s in both classes this semester, and I have a repeatable pattern to follow and refine as I continue my studies. It’s still a daunting undertaking, but with one semester done, I feel a little more confident that I can make it through.