where do i go from here..

its all in here

www.gov.uk/get-undergraduate-student-loan

not sure but read this as well

www.gov.uk/disabled-students-allowance-dsa

Do you know if it's possible to apply for a student loan if you're on income related ESA and DLA? I am considering enrolling in a course at the open university. Thanks!

25 is very young yet and you have plenty of time. And you deserve a life.

It's hard for me to workout whether the computer is a special interest you could work up into a meaningful career, or an addiction you do need to break away from. Not my place to discern, but it sounds like you need some guidance from a careers expert and a little bit if support.

Some colleges and universities offer good support to students of all ages. I hope you find your niche.

yes eventually

Thank you everyone. Today I contacted a local work support team that help with apprenticeships, training and qualifications, benefits and well anything work related really. Said I wanted something to do with IT. Hoping for the best!

No matter the outcome, I'm just going to keep at it, I'll get to where I want to be eventually. 

Totally agree with that, I work in IT and regard it as a hobby not really a job

I am a 56 year old man who has been living with undiagnosed Autism all my life. My life has been very up and down but in my late 30ies i was the Technical Support manager for a big video equipment manufacturer for Europe, Africa and the Middle East. It is just amazing what you can achieve! (i did that without any help). The world needs computer geeks. Learn to program and turn your passion into a job and it wont seem that you are working a day in your life.

I just had a word with my husband, who works in IT. He has previously taken on apprentices & had autistic staff. Currently, they are not taking on apprentices, but if they were he would be prepared to take on somebody with an aptitude for IT & keen to learn, even without actual qualifications. So there are some understanding bosses out there. I appreciate you wanting to be within a proper learning setting like a college though. 

I really don't think that you need to start at level 1. You sound more capable than that. You could start at level 2, or possibly even level 3 & if you need additional GCSE's you could study those alongside your course. With your ASD diagnosis, college should still make reasonable adjustments for you. I had one daughter with an EHCP & one without at college, the one without an EHCP still had reasonable adjustments made. No one to one support, but she was able to complete her course. Once you get to uni level you can get disabled students allowance. I'd look into realistic options in your area. You can do this! 

This was really eye opening! In particular this,

"The things I learnt that seemed useless unexpectedly became useful and made me able to help others, like I can teach parents how to understand their autistic children and what they can do to help."

I do have things that I am good at and I have been told so. I'm just not quite sure how to get to where I want to be, that is the issue.

For example I do video editing actively which I really enjoy but it's never taken off, the biggest I got was editing for a small gaming community (1K+ members).

Perhaps I just need to keep working with it and in time, it will come.

Thank you.

Qualifications, uhm, like 1 or 2 gcse's and the rest btecs, entry levels etc. So not good I guess. My strongest subject was ICT, surprise surprise. 

I am good at some things, mostly computer related. I'll paste a chunk out of a college enquiry I made recently that will tell you a bit more about me and my strengths and goals.

I know what I want to do now - I just need help achieving it. The course I had decided to take was a Level 1 course on ICT and Business at . I had planned to take that and then progress onto the Level 2 and finally level 3 where I would take a tough final exam on CompTIA A+ and hopefully land myself a decent paying job.


I spent the years I should have been learning, on the computer, mostly playing a pointless video game but that’s not to say I did not learn anything at all. Needless to say, I excelled at the computer. My writing and speaking improved tremendously as well as my team work. I acquired the speaking and team work skills from playing games and talking to people online.

These past few years I finally began to outgrow gaming and started to focus on honing my existing skills. These being, VFX, GFX and a basic programming language (a game specific variant of C++ I guess you could say). I then went even further and purchased a few discounted courses on Udemy, one being CompTIA and the others PowerShell and Music Theory. I would be doing really well, making my own music and building 2 computers from scratch! I had almost completed the courses and then… procrastination kicked in and I would go back to my game. I would even try and be fair to myself by doing the famous Pomodoro technique so I wouldn’t tire myself out but this happened every single time I tried to continue where I left off or start on something new. I really do feel like I need to be away from distractions and in an actual learning environment if I’m ever going to have a chance at succeeding. Distraction, paired with motivation seem to be my 2 biggest enemies and I am determined to take them down.

I also have a new found passion for cooking. Not sure what I would rate myself but I can make things such as burgers with cheese, bacon, caramelized onions and chips! I considered cooking as a career path (I did volunteer at a local café kitchen for around a year) but realistically getting a job in IT was more feasible due to having prior self-taught experience. Furthermore, working in a kitchen can be a stressful environment, which for me, would be a night mare because I can’t stand large groups of people and can’t take in too much information at once. So, I think I’ll keep it as a hobby. Plus, I think IT is in high demand right now anyway.

Well my original plan was to go to a main stream college but then I found out about specialist colleges which I got my heart set on but I cannot attend like I said which frustrates me. So right now I'm trying to get over it. I just think I would be more suited there as my secondary school was a special school too and I have bad experiences from my first main stream secondary school before I got transferred to the special one. Mind you I was much younger, it may very well be different now but the 2 main things that put me off from going are 1. I feel like I'm going to be in a class full of 16-18 year old's and it's going to feel incredibly awkward. and 2. I cannot do big places with lots of people hence why the specialist school seemed like a better option. 

25 is still incredibly young. I'm almost double your age & in a similar position. What exactly is it you want to do at college & what, if any, qualifications do you have already? There is the possibility of student loans, discounts, bursaries etc if you actually know what you want to do. Plus there is always apprenticeships too. If you give us an idea of what you want to do then maybe somebody can advise better.

Have you spoken to any mainstream colleges? It's been a few years since I was a mature student at college but they always had SEN specialists on staff to help students with any special needs they may have had, be they physical, neurological or whatever. It might be worth seeing if you can get an appointment with a few decent colleges to talk about their SEN programs?  Then there's always home learning as well, have you thought about the Open University? They have a SEN program too, and you can apply for a student loan to fund it, which doesn't have to be paid back until you're earning over a certain amount (it's over £20,000, I know, but I can't remember the exact figure), once/if you reach the threshold and have to start paying it back, it's only a small monthly amount. You don't need certain A level grades either, if you don't have the knowledge in a subject you want to study, they do foundation courses. Don't feel you're too late, it's never too late! A friend of mine started University at the age of 52 and now, at age 65, she's a professor at a University. But as Daniel said, don't get hung up on what you think you *should* be achieving at your age. Concentrate on what makes you happy. 

wmv,

You're worth just as much as anyone else, you are not worthless

You don't want to be emotionally beating yourself up, that's the first thing to know otherwise you'll lose clarity in thinking.

Acknowledge and try to accept your past is not part of your present life, try not to become fixated on predictions about your future, predictions about our future can make things harder, especially if we're feeling down, try not to expect too much from yourself, only set goals you're ready to reach.

Look at what you have done, you recognized you were being held back by your computer, once you did so you cut off your online contacts (another wise choice), you're desiring to have friends in person. These few actions alone have made you progress, progression is not something to be sad about. 

Try and let go of all the illusions, concepts and expectations that the majority places before people. The ages you've mentioned, these are some of the illusions the public sets, let go of ideas like by the age of 30 someone should have a job.

Our desires won't always occur at the times we expect, I'm 30 and have never had a career so I look at other things I can do now even if they seem useless, having a career isn't the same as making a life, if the career is something you enjoy it's worth it as life is to be enjoyed.

Like you were on your computer for so long I've spent all my time living alone learning about autism and looking for things out of college to do in my life. Learning things outside of the education system independently or with private tuition is another route to a life. The things I learnt that seemed useless unexpectedly became useful and made me able to help others, like I can teach parents how to understand their autistic children and what they can do to help.

Allow life to unfold itself and remember that worth, value, joy, life is not determined by what is the majority. The joy we feel in our lives has very little to do with the circumstances of our lives, but everything to do with the focus of our lives. Be careful what you choose to focus on.