University with Asperger's

My name is Brian Brodie. I am a graduate of the University of Edinburgh, where I read Business Studies (and, for the first three out of four years, Accountancy) from 1992 to 1996, and gained a Bachelor of Commerce degree. I have Asperger Syndrome, not picked up on or diagnosed until years later. At the time I was at EU there was little or no knowledge of Asperger’s and certainly no help or assistance for those with the condition in their life at university. Therefore, I’m writing as someone who went through university with undiagnosed Asperger’s about the experiences I had.

I studied Business Studies and Accountancy partly because of persuasion (and dissuasion from doing a subject of more interest to me) and partly because of indecision at the time as to my future career. My accommodation in Edinburgh in the first year was at Pollock Halls of Residence, and straight away I found I was experiencing problems fitting in to life at university both at the halls of residence and elsewhere. Initially I was socialising with a group which included people I knew from my high school, as well as some people I’d met at Pollock. I found myself coming under a lot of peer pressure to drink heavily like other students did (when at the time I was underage). I also had no idea how to socialise properly in a way that fitted in well with these groups. These difficulties led to me being rejected rather quickly by these groups, and becoming a loner within the university setting. In the four years after that I made virtually no friends, preferring to be alone anyway as I became very depressed and, unfortunately, disenchanted with the university environment.

Academically, I was not very well prepared for the different structure of study at university, compared to high school. It was difficult for me that things were a lot more unstructured. There were a number of lectures and tutorials per week but other than that, studying was a lot more independent. I soon found I was failing a lot of exams, needing to resit many, and so realised I needed to be doing a lot more study than I initially thought. I found it a struggle to study anyway, not only because the subject didn’t interest me very much, but also due to demotivation in both study life and wider university life. In spite of all that I pushed onwards and got my degree.

Social problems continued from the second year onwards as I had to move out of Pollock and start to share flats with other students. This was an extremely difficult thing for me to do. In the first flat I shared, I only lasted the first semester as the other flatmates felt I didn’t fit in and I was asked to leave. I then moved into a house with some other students (each having their own room) where I had some bad experiences of bullying from some of them. In the final two years I was in another shared flat where I somehow got through the two years living very separately from my flatmates. As I had not made friends at uni, it meant having to share flats with people who were previously unbeknown to me which did not help matters.

Since graduating, I have been in various jobs and I feel most of my working career has not gone as well as hoped, after getting a degree. Having Asperger’s has caused difficulties in the workplace and my jobs have tended to be insecure. I feel my degree in Business Studies isn’t commensurate with the jobs I’d have good potential in, however fortunately I am in a job now where my situation is a lot better and I'm a lot more stable.