For context I have audhd. I’ve always been confused about the association between stacking toys and autism. I don’t particularly remember stacking toys as a kid other than of course I did because I was a kid. Don’t lots of kids try to stack stuff as high as possible occasionally? Why is this seen as an autistic trait? Is it a stereotype due to the historical bias towards autistic boys with a particular presentation or something else? If it really is associated with autism and not a bias, why do autistic kids do it more?
… well you can’t really choose to be or not be autistic, whereas you can choose to pursue a PhD or not.
(Cough, assuming money is not an issue, cough)
And tons of people who are not autistic, do have PhDs.
And and! You can do science, learn the scientific method, apply it more broadly to how you interact with the world… without a PhD, without being autistic.
Well, in most reputable universities you can take a phd program for free, indeed, they pay you. (yes, also is US). It is understood in academics that “you should not buy your way to a phd, but earn it”.
I said the thing about the autism, because I’ve seen a loooooot of people that I strongly suspect are in the spectrum. And “the good ones”, the ones that are truly remarkable researchers, have spent their lives obsessing with every single detail of a certain area.
Again, not a law, but in that context it seems to be, to some degree, an advantage.
Oh I agree with you in that, being detail and consistency focused are autistic traits that are very helpful to complex research, and yeah, you’re probably not wrong, a lot of PhDs probably are on the spectrum.
I guess I’m just trying to be more broadly encouraging of anyone who wants to pursue research, education, learning the scientific method.
Autism is not a hard requirement, is what I’m trying to say.
The flip side of autism being a benefit for PhDs is that, well, autists tend to hyperfocus, burnout, snd not be so great with social skills…
… and social skills are often quite a necesssry component of becoming a PhD, overfocus and then burning out can be quite detrimental to the pursuit.
… What I am aware of is a paradigm where, when you are pursuing your PhD, you teach undergrads, usually for not really enough money to comfortably pay your CoL + all the loans you likely had to take to get to the academic level where you would be considered for all that.
That’s the trick. Get your bachelor in a real country that cares about educating their inhabitants for little or no money.
Then the phd is paid by
selling your soul to the systemteaching kids anddoing all the work of a lecture for breadcrumbsassisting with assignments