“You need to sell yourself as The Autistic Me,” is a refrain colleagues and blog followers have offered throughout the years. I’ve heard this after public speaking engagements and conference appearances. “Market your autistic experiences and expertise.” Though I do not wish to go on tour selling myself as an expert…
Category: Employment
Posts on the employment challenges faced by autistics.
We should carefully consider when trying to make everything accessible gets in the way of making things useful. The challenge of designing for equal opportunity and access to information (and entertainment) leads to some choices that impede the reception of important information. The detailed supplemental captions available for some movies…
Academic departments in the humanities rarely understand the social impairments of autism. These departments are, by their nature, social places — quite unlike some departments in the STEM disciplines. I’ve blogged repeatedly that STEM fields tolerate introversion and even social awkwardness, but not the humanities. This claim is based not…
Employment history and various job searches demonstrate how difficult it has been for me to locate and retain employment. In September, Slate carried the following article by Sarah Carr, using “Leigh” as an example of the hurdles facing autistic adults. The Tricky Path to Employment Is Trickier When You’re Autistic…
“Smile,” the photographer kept directing me. “I am,” I kept replying. “Look at the girls and smile.” “I am. How could I not be smiling?” On the way home, our five-year-old foster daughter asked why Daddy can’t smile. I smiled. Or so I thought. My wife finally explained, “If Daddy…
Earning the MFA in Film and Digital Technology proved a challenge, in many ways. We had medical emergencies (including surgeries for both my wife and me), family emergencies, and the general financial stress of a graduate degree. There were long nights and weekends spent working on projects and papers, trying…
Thirty years ago, I was preparing to move to Los Angeles to attend USC. If I could tell myself what I know now… 1) Do not drop the physical sciences degree four units short! The English and journalism degrees won’t get you far. 2) Do not drop the computer science…
When I was an undergraduate, my goal was to teach high school photography, yearbook, and newspaper. If I could undo the last 27 years of my career… I would. In a heartbeat. Accepting a job that seemed right changed my life and took me away from that path. The right…
Networking is part of developing a career. This is true of any career, including that of writer / scholar. If you want someone to publish or produce your works, you have to be social. You have to be known. Yes, there are exceptions to this rule, artists able to succeed…
Some books and noted speakers make the case that academia is one of the better career paths for autistic adults capable of completing the required education. I’m unconvinced this is good advice for anyone, much less autistic individuals. Let me begin with the academic job market. Even within STEM fields,…