I did not want to answer this question. I am only doing it for completeness sake. My experience with colleges has been with trade school type colleges like Appalling, Never, and Devil. Given my nicknames for these schools, you can easily guess how much trouble I had with attending them, how successful I was achieving my goals, and if I actually got better jobs out of it. I also made some attempts at community colleges, but that didn’t go very well either.
Community college attempt(s): I could not get the FASFA completely filled out after high school. I could not get the FAFSA completely filled out because my parents refused to give their annual income on the form, so I was not able to find out if I could get any financial assistance. I am still extremely peeved about this because this problem came up well into my twenties. Also: I was aware that I had various issues but was not able to get accommodation for them because I did not have an official diagnosis.
Appalling: The course was Psychiatric Tech. This was an extremely unpleasant experience because of a high level of class toxicity! Also, I had pretty serious meltdowns due to the undiagnosed autism and rampant bullying. (Which was encouraged/allowed by the teacher.) It was pretty much like my entire school experience to date at the time, only ramped up to eleven. I should have quite within the first week, but I did not! I am not going too much into detail about this situation as this school experience could theoretically fill many, many posts. My meltdowns were so severe that I…uh…got kicked out. Not that I care. (I am also slightly cranky that the coursework implied you would be working with patients, but the jobs you got directed toward would have been desk jobs/secretarial/receptionist…but the coursework didn’t have uh useful office skill classes.)
Never: The Course was Forensic Tech. I would have liked this course more, except for the cops. (I was interested in forensics at the time, though I uh…am not suited for the kinds of jobs related to forensics. Many of them required cars and I a) can’t drive b) wouldn’t have been able to afford a car.) I still had difficulties in relation to my undiagnosed autism! I became overwhelmed easily and tended to alarm my classmates (or annoy them.) I had a few meltdowns, but I knocked my grades out of the park. I also continued to have difficulties with classmates due to ah…extremely communication difficulties on my part. One fellow classmate thought I hated him. Another classmate hated me (due to an Inappropriate Humor incident) and a third one would get angry with me for unknown eye-contact reasons. (Too much? Too little?) I quit this course. Because cops.
Devil: The Course was Web Graphic Design! I managed to get through all of the coursework! It took me a really long time, but I got through it despite epic meltdowns and deteriorating physical and mental health. I had the usual problems with interacting with other students, had various meltdowns, then switched to online which went much better because I did not actually have to meet people face to face. (Still had problems with interacting with other people, but much less than in meatspace.) Now, the intent of this course was to teach you how to design web pages. Problem: all of the jobs involving web design/user experience/user interface required knowledge of Java, and various other coding languages, and of course HTML/CSS. Did any of the course work involve coding? No, of course not. (There was some HTML/CSS but not a lot.) I successfully completed the course, got an associates, and was promptly unable to find a job. Because everyone wanted web designers who could code.
Honorable Mention: I had some vocational training that uh…I was not able to put to use because I do not test well, particularly timed tests. Particularly timed tests using clunky mock-ups that don’t quite act the way the actual program does. (No, they really don’t. If I had half the problem with Actual Excel that I had with Mock Up Test Excel I would not be able to use Excel at all.) I got interviews, but was never able to get hired due to difficulties with “Prove it!” sites and also with the entire (gestures to self).
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