UNIVERSITY. TO GO OR NOT TO GO, THAT IS THE QUESTION.

I was watching a video which a fellow Autistic friend of mine uploaded who said that if she had her time again, she wouldn’t have gone to university. For me, yes, I would have still gone but wish I had known that I am autistic when I was 15, rather than 35.

The lucky few of us know who we are and what we want to do when we’re 10 and pursue that path retiring having reached the pinnacle of success at 60–65. For the rest of us, we may change our minds a dozen times between then and now. And let’s not forget that some people begin university in their 30s, 40s and 50s, having finally learnt what they want to do.

University education is not necessarily a marker of intelligence, after all, Australia had a Rhodes Scholar in Kirribilli between September 18, 2013, and September 14, 2015, who was the most incompetent fool to occupy the highest elected office in the land. Conversely, the greatest fool in Australian politics, Hanson, is basically an uneducated version of the Rhodes Scholar fool!

My reasons for wanting to attend university were to pursue my interests in Japanese and History and to prove the bullies wrong. I did both. If I had known that I’m autistic when I was 15, I may have opted to do three subjects per semester instead of four and I would have liked to have done something autism based as well as Japanese and History.

When it came to the social aspects, I didn’t go to university to make friends; I pretty much abstained from joining clubs and groups. I would have liked to have joined the Japanese Society, though. I didn’t have many friends in high school.

My advice would be, if you want to go to university, go, if you don’t, it doesn’t matter, and if you later change your mind, that’s okay, too. You have to do what’s right for you.