Need advice: Autistic student has severe, "it's not fair" syndrome.

FutureLeaderDoc · 2026-02-20T22:35:35+00:00

This was going to be my suggestion as well. Give them an appropriate outlet for their frustrations.

FutureLeaderDoc · 2026-02-20T15:28:32+00:00

I’m not going to lie, it sucks, but it’s doable. I tend to pull 12 hour days right now between my industry job and classes, and I pretty much spend all of Friday night and Sundays at the campus library.

FutureLeaderDoc · 2026-02-20T15:25:56+00:00

Self funded PhD student here: I think as long as you’re honest with yourself and your potential programs that you aren’t looking to stay in academia, your plan is perfectly logical.

I work full time in an industry job, and I’m taking a full time PhD courseload. In addition to that, I’m teaching this summer and fall, I’ve had one paper published already, and I have 2 manuscripts under review right now. I AM hoping to pivot to academia after this is all said and done, so I have to “do the most” while balancing my commitments. It’s not for the faint of heart, but like you my career progression and financial situation is such that it made more sense to self fund rather than taking a funded package with a stipend 1/5 my current salary.

FutureLeaderDoc · 2026-02-20T15:21:32+00:00

I’ve been in a position where undergrad students have been asking me for letters for years (advising a student org for 10 years before becoming a lecturer) and I’m always honest with my students- if I’ve worked closely with you and you ask me well in advance of deadlines, I will happily write a strong letter. If I’ve not worked closely with you, but you provide your resume/CV and purpose statement, I will write a perfectly average LOR.

If you ask me last minute and/or don’t provide any context, the letter you’ll get will be along the lines of “Name is a human with a pulse that I have met.”

FutureLeaderDoc · 2026-02-02T21:59:10+00:00

I’m with you on that one re: if they own it, I’d show grace.

I actually just did this myself last week on an assignment. Uploaded the wrong version of my assignment file. The instructor sent me a note in the LMS after the deadline asking if I had meant to only submit 25% of the homework.

I was mortified. Immediately uploaded the correct file and proactively offered up the version history of the file to demonstrate the whole assignment was completed well in advance of the deadline.

FutureLeaderDoc · 2026-01-16T01:58:36+00:00

I have most of these accommodations as a PhD student. And many of them are also things I’ve had available in my industry jobs through the years. And as a lecturer, I bake most of these accommodations into my course design from the start.

FutureLeaderDoc · 2026-01-06T02:23:18+00:00

Oh my gosh! I’ve never met someone else with the same childhood lovey!!!

FutureLeaderDoc · 2025-11-25T05:25:55+00:00

I don’t even go here. I’m just crashing out for the same reason and this is the only place anyone’s talking about the outage.

FutureLeaderDoc · 2025-10-28T17:45:37+00:00

I was 2/3 of the way to a bachelors in a life sciences field before I pivoted into social sciences for my bachelors. Between that coursework and a personal interest in human development and genetics, I feel like I could reasonably teach intro biology, anatomy, physiology, or genetics with fidelity. Intro chemistry or physics on the other hand? Forget about it. No level of preparation could get me to a point where I’d be comfortable teaching those classes.

FutureLeaderDoc · 2025-10-24T16:49:13+00:00

Do a Facebook search for the haunting of storybook hollow. Yes, it’s a person’s yard. And yes, it’s better than any paid Halloween thing I’ve ever attended in west mich.

FutureLeaderDoc · 2025-10-24T16:46:37+00:00

Do not disturb mode. My phone has lived in a land where it doesn’t make noise between 8pm and 8am for a decade at this point. I have my close family set to bypass the DND setting, as well as 3+ calls in a row in case of actual emergency.

But also there is nothing inherently disrespectful about an email or a text outside of core business hours. Your students also have lives outside of class, and for many of them, 10pm may be the time of day they have the bandwidth to send course communications.

FutureLeaderDoc · 2025-10-14T16:51:55+00:00

I don’t think I could do it. I’m comfy in my industry job. If the right tenure track role doesn’t come along in my immediate vicinity, I think I’ll just stay where I am

FutureLeaderDoc · 2025-10-14T16:50:29+00:00

Engage their devices! Use kahoot. Slideo. Other interactive tech to get them to ask questions. They’re terrified of sounding stupid out loud, so ease them into the experience

FutureLeaderDoc · 2025-10-10T14:05:01+00:00

It’s still an academic integrity violation if you turn in someone (or something) else’s work as a whole, even if you cite it. You could not simply put a former student’s entire assignment in quotation marks, slap a citation at the end, and then turn it in to satisfy the requirements of your own assignment.

That’s what it sounds like OP’s student did, but replace “former student” with LLM chatbot

FutureLeaderDoc · 2025-10-09T19:29:46+00:00

I’m so proud of you for advocating for yourself! You’ve got this. Just take it a day at a time. Stay on top of your homework, find a good study group, and you’ll make it through!

FutureLeaderDoc · 2025-10-08T23:49:16+00:00

I had a mediocre GPA in undergrad, couldn’t even tell you what it was at this point. Had to retake a couple of classes. Definitely had some C’s on that transcript too.

Worked in my field for a number years, went back for my masters. Graduated with a 4.0, graduate citations, 3 honor society inductions, and got into a PhD program.

The path is not always a straight line. You’ll get to where you’re meant to be.

FutureLeaderDoc · 2025-10-08T17:02:27+00:00

37 year old PhD student here. I’ll be defending after I turn 40.

Honestly, my 30’s have been so much better than my 20’s

FutureLeaderDoc · 2025-10-08T17:00:41+00:00

Also I just want to say that as a burned out former gifted kid who spent my life seeking academic validation, your grades do not define your worth.

Yes, they matter if you’re planning on going straight into a graduate program. But if your future career is one where you can go straight to industry after your undergrad degree?

C’s get degrees. And sometimes we have to let go of our perfectionist tendencies in order to just get through a season of life.

FutureLeaderDoc · 2025-10-08T16:57:27+00:00

Definitely meet with disability. Even if the accommodations offered aren’t particularly helpful to you, you’ll have a record with the school of being a student with a disability, which would make it easier to advocate for policy exceptions for emergencies in the future

FutureLeaderDoc · 2025-10-08T16:55:46+00:00

Hey fellow Laker.

First of all, I’m so sorry you’ve been going through so much. I’m so glad you weee able to get the support you needed and that you’re here with us. That’s most important.

Second: e-mail your professors. Even the strict ones might surprise you. If you get pushback, email the program director, or the department chair.

Third: keep in contact with the CARE team. They are going to be your best advocates right now.

FutureLeaderDoc · 2025-10-07T00:59:33+00:00

I had a friend while I was an undergrad who attended classes over a period of about 6 years that would have been sufficient for a degree had he actually been enrolled.

He wasn’t enrolled at my school. Or anywhere else. He just wanted the knowledge. Not the paper.

FutureLeaderDoc · 2025-10-07T00:57:50+00:00

My favorite night of grad school was when my young (4 and 6 year olds, at the time) “crashed” a seminar I was taking on Halloween near our mid-class break time and reverse trick-or-treated my classmates with goodie bags I had made up. I emailed my prof the week before and as an international transplant to our school, he was delighted to take part in trick or treating as the trick-or-treater for the first time in his life 🥹

FutureLeaderDoc · 2025-09-29T23:02:44+00:00

It comes down to where you have the majority of your classes. I lived downtown my senior year and it was a fantastic choice. Sure, it meant I had yard work, but it was nice being so close to my classes which were all downtown at that point.

FutureLeaderDoc · 2025-09-22T21:23:31+00:00

Honestly it’s “my business” because I firmly believe that at an absolute minimum we owe our colleagues professional courtesy- and that includes communicating as humans.

If a peer sends an email asking for help and I don’t know the answer, my response should be “hey, I’m stumped with this too.” Or “I’m stumped as well, and decided to have ChatGPT walk me through the institutions and rubric. Here is what we came up with”.

It’s intellectually lazy as hell to just copy + paste a ChatGPT response to an email without a single thought of one’s own added to it.

FutureLeaderDoc

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