I found that I got on far better with other people from another student society, as those on my course seemed to be constantly switching who/what their alliances were.
I found that I got on far better with other people from another student society, as those on my course seemed to be constantly switching who/what their alliances were.
The theorists can look at what "could be" in and ideal world, but the real world is not ideal and - in my opinion - is never likely to be. They tend to live in echo chambers for their views and seem every bit as polarised as the right wing they often complain so much about.
In my career sector this is almost exactly what has happened - adopting particular social justice theories (Critical Race Theory, Genderqueer ideology) which many would not agree with in the first place. As a result In the past 10 years the professional body has become unreasonably controlling over what you can and can't say, and is even preventing people from expressing views which are legal to do so in a liberal democratic society. Not that you should be using racial slurs, using casual sexist language or being generally disrespectful in the workplace, because as an Autistic person I know from experience that what you say does of course matter. But much of this is already implied in previously established professional guidelines. It seems to be creating more division and anxiety for silent majority of those on the ground who really just want to get on with the job at hand, and for whom a colleagues race/gender/disability is simply been a non-issue, which is sufficiently protected by the Equality Act 2010, who are now terrified of making a mistake.
I completed my undergraduate degree through part-time distance learning with the OU but I did a semi distance part time Masters later on in life which meant that I didn’t have much contact with student societies. It was a hugely rewarding experience as much of the time I was researching abroad. I seem to connect better with people older or younger than I am, and I work best on my own, although I do like other people, it is just too exhausting to spend much time in company. I too am concerned about how rapidly society and politics has become polarised and about the squeezing out of middle ground. It is increasingly difficult to have a constructive argument over a topic, without it becoming personal. University taught me useful life skills, enabling me to analyse evidence and make an informed decision. I am grateful that their are so many opportunities in education for autistic people. Society needs open minded people who are aware of their conscious and potentially unconscious bias.
the first time I kissed my future wife, I effectively asked if it would be appropriate
Cudos to asking permission - in this day and age it is a minefield for making unsolicited advances, even verbal, to other people. It has put me right off dating as I have a mix of trouble reading non verbal cues when under pressure and an aversion to rejection making a rejected advance one of the worst things I can think of in that situaion.
Back in the pre-woke era my most effective approach was to work out if the lady in question appeared interested and when the time felt right tell them "I'm going to kiss you now" and give enough of a gap for them to say no if they didn't want it - that seemed the best balance.
These days I'm wary of this being seen as a form of sexual assault without having a signed contract agreeing to levels of approved intimacy before even holding their hand.
A slight exaggeration but you get the idea - it feels more iike a contract negotiation than dating.
I have been married for 28 years. I eventually worked out that the problem was within me. I did some research on non-verbal communication, so that I could decode situations more accurately, and forced myself to be far more courageous. Even so, the first time I kissed my future wife, I effectively asked if it would be appropriate - it was.
That is an interesting observation and I suspect has much mirroring in the rest of the world.
The theorists can look at what "could be" in and ideal world, but the real world is not ideal and - in my opinion - is never likely to be. They tend to live in echo chambers for their views and seem every bit as polarised as the right wing they often complain so much about.
Real world experiene (in my view) leads to a more conservative outlook I find and this leads these people to being more right wing by definition (conservative = right wing, liberal = left wing being the general rule of thumb).
That does not mean there is no space for compassion and charity - I do spend a lot of my time and income on these, but many people don't have the interest or motivation to do this.
So many aspects of life, including politics, seems to have become polarised with little space left for a middle ground. I find this very sad as it means people have largely lost their capacity to keep an open mind.
So, in my experience at my university, some departments were very, very left wing; others not so much. It tended to be departments which were more theoretical - for example the philosophy department was very left wing as was the English department. However, the built environment department (real estate, town planning, architecture) was fairly sound, because most of the lecturers were currently or had been working professionals in the 'real world' in planning consultancies or in local authorities. What they were teaching wasn't just theory.
In many of these universities there is way too much emphasis on both social life and political activism, normally far-leftist and globalist, etc, when it should be about learning the course content to getting a degree and then, a job - thank goodness that I was never allowed to go to university, as in later life, both I and my colleagues discovered in my last supermarket job (for 17 years) that many students who worked with us had zero life skills and were clearly being indoctrinated and brainwashed in the universities on so many issues, as we clearly saw before and during Covid
In the absence of being able to recognise any interest from any young woman, I was too afraid of rejection, or of doing something inappropriate, that I never made any advances whatsoever.
Do you have a partner now? Have you managed to have any success since uni out of interest.
Yes I definitely self-censor. I think raising awareness of sexual assault has made men terrified of approaching women, less it gets misread. Some of it is undoubtedly justified, but on the other hand I have no script off what's right/helpful and wats not helpful/harmful.
Yeah as I said that was my experience too.
I felt that the effort I was trying so hard to mask not being terribly interested in others, wasn't being reciprocated back.
My course didn't require a fieldtrip, although there was an optional one with which people had to raise money for through cake sales. Wouldn't have suited me tbh, and I gather there was a lot of drinking
I was never very impressed with the SU at my university. They found subtle ways of banning speakers/societies with views with which the representatives of the SU 'did not like' - for example cancelling room bookings for particular worldview societies at short notice without good reason. Usually those which aligned themselves with right of centre views.
At one point the SU wanted to impose a campus wide ban on clapping and replace it with jazz hands. Didn't go through AFAIK. One of the student representatives succeeded in having sanitary bins put in men's toilets, because 'men have periods too'. She posted a picture on Twitter with the slogan 'my menstrual blood flows through the streets for fighting for the rights of women of all genders'. They spent too much time engaging in social engineering rather than actually finding practical solutions to longstanding problems - for example overpriced food in the restaurants, lack of alcohol free freshers activities and nearby secondary school students being allowed to use computers in the library, even during exam time
Sadly at my university, many (not all) of the societies were just drinking societies under the guises of 'snowsports society', 'fashion society'. Thankfully I found my niche, and it sounds like you did too. Well done for havering the bravery to join a society.
No, it doesn't help when you don't knoiw what you are up against. My childhood difficulties were brushed under the carpet.
I don't think I socialised with anyone on my course, but student societies were open to all, whatever you were studying.
I'm currently a second year university student. What i have found is that student societies have been the best thing for me. Within course mates not everyone is that interested in the subject. Some people just do the degree for to achieve extra money when leave university , experience university, just because don't want to get a job yet, parents encouraged them. Some people may have only choose that course just because they are good at it. Even though i take a very 'nerdy course' (mathematics) a lot of coursemates tend to actually not talk about the course much they tend to talk about their nights out, their own societies and general life. As many autistic people do i find it hard to talk about anything outside my interests so this is sometimes hard to make connections with other people on my course.
Whereas, in societies we often spend a lot of time together doing our interests and talking to people that's why i felt like i find it easier to make more friends that way. I am involved in trampolining and i still stand by that without being involved in a society i do not feel like i would have made though even a semester. Societies have helped me feel not alone even though i don't always like socialising. They have helped me find a community and make my university feel like home.
University was ok, tough in the final year though. As my family lived in a remote area, in my late teenage years I had to leave home and attend a university over a hundred miles away, so two big transitions firstly moving to a new (distant) area (where I knew few people) and secondly a transition to a much more demanding educational environment from secondary school.
If I could have my time again, I would try to work for a few years post school (to that I was more mature and would have more money) and maybe try doing part of the degree part time (maybe an HNC or HND in the degree subject) at a local college if the option was available (it is for some degree courses in Scotland), then I would have less time to do at the more remote (and expensive) distant university.
I only joined one society at uni and rarely went to the union bar, but still found lots of friends and enjoyed myself.
I seem to be the only person I know on here or in fleshyland who enjoyed uni, maybe it was because I went to a small uni or because as a mature student I was a bit more self sufficient?
I do find it sad that I'm the only one who enoyed it, and it makes me feel like an outlier again.
Much later in life I went back to the local university and did an MBA. I thought I was completely done with classrooms and exams but I had a go and found that I learned quite a lot of interesting things, virtually none of which I have subsequently put to any use!
University was where it all started to go wrong for me, really. I did well at school - the combination of being able to hyperfocus and living in the most boring place imaginable meant that I was able to concentrate on school work and get into university.
Once there I struggled with the lack of routine - went completely off the rails in terms of managing time, even telling night from day, and wasn't able to do basic things for myself (apart from drink a lot). I had friends but found myself tending to copy what they did in order to try and fit in. I did, eventually, get a girlfriend but only after she basically decided that's what she was (because I was completely unable to read any signs from her).
After university most people went off to work in the usual graduate type jobs (law, accountancy etc) but I just went home and signed on the dole. A couple of years after leaving university I was put on a scheme to get long-term unemployed people into work and, strangely, I felt at home with some of the people with SEN and methodone prescriptions. I got lucky in the end by just persevering to the point where people just gave me things to do and then paid me to do them and I tried really hard not to mess it up. Looking back, though, it was pretty chaotic. Would I change things if I'd known age 20 that I was autistic? Maybe, I think I could have done with some help back then.