What Now?

It is 4:19 in the morning of another countless night. I have lost the ability to have a night of peaceful sleep since I have graduated from college. The reason is because I am afraid. I am afraid for my future and to talk about it with my family members or with colleagues is quite hard for me to talk about. Writing it gives me that feel that no one will talk over or not listen to me. A way for me to speak. I know being autistic that it’s hard for me to communicate and so I write this in order to help express my frustration and to help others understand what many like me are going through from my perspective.

I went to college to follow a dream. I left with them being shattered. I was excited for the opportunity to do internships and be able to work and get to learn from others to become a better specialist in my field, but first I would have to learn, study hard in college, to become prepared for internships in the coming year. I studied hard, spent countless nights at the computer just learning and doing homework because I wanted to be the best I can be when the time came for me to work. Eventually it was the year I was able to apply for internships. I applied to as many firms as I could think of in my field because I was so excited to be able to work in the field. When it came time to doing the application, I did everything honestly. When it came time to answer the Equal Employer Opportunity questions such as your sexual orientation, veteran identification, I answered them honestly. Then it asked if I had a disability, which gave a list of what they considered disabilities. I honestly checked yes because according to their list, I would be considered disabled since I’m openly neurodiverse. All these questions are confidential, but my potential employers would already know that I’m neurodiverse since it is on my resume that I’m neurodiverse and an advocate for neurodiversity because it’s something that I care very much about and plan on helping others in the community during my time working.

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During my time applying to firms, you would occasionally talk to others who were applying to internships for firms since that was what we were all doing at the time. Talking to many of my colleagues gave me some imposter syndrome because many of these students would talk about their internship from some firm in their past when they were in their sophomore or even freshman year. That very much made me nervous since my experience was basically being a dish washer at restaurants and doing some retail work through a program since those were the only type of jobs I could get. It was also nerve wrecking since the job search before the internship hunt was incredibly difficult since I applied to a bunch of retail shops and did not even get an opportunity, including interviews. I mean I looked everywhere from places like coffee shops all the way to big name stores. Eventually I was able to get a job at restaurant as a dishwasher due to my brother who worked there.

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As internship hiring season was ending, I kept on getting rejected from almost every single firm I was applying to, or they would just not respond back. I was able to at least take part in two video interviews, which were incredibly odd and very unnatural to do since you are not interacting with anyone and feels like you need to rush your answers due to the timer, which counts down from two minutes.?The video interviews were difficult but kept on pressing forward and trying to apply to a few firms that were still left open. Near the dead end of interview season, I was able to get a Superday from a firm, and so I flew to New York to interview. I did the interview with the firm for the internship position and the firm seemed to like me. In the end, they did not think I would be a good fit for the internship position and directed me to apply to their quant internship, which turned out to not exist or appear on their application website.

Internship season ended and I was left without an internship for the summer. When it came to the summertime, I tried searching for a job all over and was not able to get a job again until the end of June from a store in a mall. Later found out that the store was supportive of Autism Speaks. That was the only job I could get during the summer and took it without hesitation. That was a painful summer for me. I felt that I should be doing an internship for a firm in order to gain insight into the field and become a better worker for my career. It was very hard to shake off the thought of all my colleagues working in their careers, doing analytics and presentations while I was folding shirts in a retail store with a bunch of kids. I felt broken and wasted. I wanted to show my worth and never got the chance to do it.

When the summer ended, I returned to my university. It was humiliating to be back. Almost everyone I bumped into before the semester began talked about their internship and their experience. I always tried to get out of talking about my summer because I was embarrassed about what they would think. I would eventually have to talk about it, because at the beginning of one class, the teacher made each student introduce themselves and where they interned during the summer. Hearing everyone else made me self-conscious about when I went up. When it came to my turn, I went up and told them about my summer. It was by far the most embarrassing and shameful moment while at school. I felt like I did not belong. That semester, more and more of my colleagues were receiving offers to join the firm where they interned and some that were below my grade were getting internships.

Meanwhile, I was applying to firms consistently every day. I was eventually reached out to by a tech company that was interested in me and wanted to interview me. It honestly was not my field of interest, but I wanted to be interviewed by them since it was a job, and I did not have any leads in my area of interest. The potential employer did say to me and the other candidates to make a presentation on a topic that we were interested in, and so I created a presentation based on technological innovations relating to my field since I am incredibly fascinated with it. I went to the interview and did my presentation for them. While doing my presentation, I realized that they saw that I was way more interested in the topic I was talking about and I do believe that they picked up on it. In a way, I also realized in those moments that I would not be a good candidate for them because I need to have a real interest in the field, and I cared too much about my interest to just give up on it. Unfortunately, I did not get the job, but I was determined to keep on trying to get into my career path. I applied even harder and applied to as many firms that I could think of. It was my dream, since I was a kid, to get into that field.

Eventually, my time was up. Graduation day came and I was still left without a job. That was probably the worst day of my life and I was thankful that the Covid-19 pandemic made it impossible to have an in-person ceremony. I would have been too embarrassed and too ashamed to be apart of it. It led to a mini depression for me. You must understand that I pushed myself to my brink, to be the best I could be. I never partied, always was working on myself and my work. Would consistently go to office hours, try and improve on my knowledge if I were having difficulty with something. I pushed myself. Ever since I was a senior in high school. I was mad. I was so frustrated that all my work that I put in on myself, to get to the school I’ve always wanted to get to, and do all the classes I wanted to do for my career field, and to work incredibly hard in them was never paid off. What was the point of me going to college if I would end up in the same position have I not? It was such a painful experience. I was disappointed in myself. It is hard for me to talk about it to my family or to my friends, because I do not want them to see me in such a vulnerable state and I do not want them to feel let down by me. It hurts. Sometimes I just want to talk to someone who can give me wisdom but not from family. Does that make sense? I just want to talk to somebody who understands.

During the year 2020, I worked on myself. I learned how to do programming with Python, some with Java and R, started trying to create financial programs, and started to learn machine learning. I am still applying to firms, but mostly just rejections. I have tried support sites to help me in my job search, but many of those are not really friendly towards newer applicants to the workforce. I have lost weight, cannot sleep as much anymore, and am consistently worried about my future and where I am right now. One of my worries is how I do not want to become the statistic. 15% of those on the spectrum have a higher education and out of those with a higher education, 15% have jobs. There are autistic individuals who have a Masters in STEM or Mathematics and are working in grocery stores, stocking food and products and that scares me so much. I am personally afraid that I will just decay and end up in a dead-end job with little to no aspirations. The unfortunate truth is, regardless of my denial, I am part of the statistic and I must accept it.

I climbed to the top and I am back at the bottom. I am lost, but through all this tribulation, I still have hope. I still believe that I can overcome my obstacles and that I can climb my way out of hades into paradise. I know that it will be hard, and I will struggle on the way but as long as I have faith in myself, anything is possible.