Stuff Asperger People Like

stjohns.edu

Many Asperger people obtain careers in academia.  Often, the academic area of interest is something that was a special interest growing up. For this reason, becoming a professor is much like a “Revenge of the Asperger nerds,” experience.

In the old pre-PhD days, the Aspie had to find someone willing to put up with their endless hours of “drosophila fly mating” facts. When the Aspie becomes a professor, she finds joy in knowing not only will she be able to discuss the sexual behavior of flies, but people are willing to pay thousands of dollars and go into debt to hear her speak as well.

Great pleasure is taken in giving 2-hour speeches where students are now at the Aspie’s mercy-forced to take notes, maybe even pretend they are interested and ask questions if participation points are included in the grading system. The Aspie Professor loves giving telephone book sized notes and telling her students, “No cherry picking will take place,” as any ridiculous fact may be thrown in on a test. 

The Asperger Professor will eventually become tenured after publishing dozens of papers about his fly voyeuristic experiences and being given lots of money by people like National Institutes of Health and various organizations he has convinced through careful con-artist intellectualizing (otherwise known as grant writing) studying fly sex will save the world. Or the children. Or the whales. It really just depends on the organization and how much money they’re willing to give him.

Finally, the tentured professor job is the opportunity for the Aspie to prove (at least to himself) why he really was put on the earth and that descriptions used to label him years ago by professionals that were obviously not as bright as he is (Pedantic, little professor syndrome) seem perfectly befitting and not abnormal at all. “Pedantic is good,” he thinks. “People are inherently stupid and it is my job to teach them. Or at least make them have sleepless nights memorizing fly sex facts.”