University

Survival guides for navigating accessibility in university.

The single most important thing you can learn in university: the difference between being bad at something and that thing being inaccessible to you. This distinction will shape your decisions during crucial developmental years and affect how you see your own abilities.

If your current university is genuinely incompatible with your needs, consider transferring to the University of Washington Seattle;they’re famously strong in accessibility.

What’s Normal:

for Neurodivergent Students

From an economist’s perspective, these are normal and acceptable choices:

✓ Taking longer to graduate
✓ Changing your major
✓ Not doing honours
✓ Having student debt

However: The majors you pick and early jobs you list on your resume set signaling mechanisms for your entire career. Neurodivergent Upgrade helps you navigate these transitions strategically, so alternative timing doesn’t get misread as lack of ability.

Foundations:

Self-Advocacy, Access & Respect

Build the toolkit you need before you build the schedule.

Self-Advocating

Asking for what you need in academic settings

  • Self-Advocating - How to approach chairs and deans, framing explanations rather than excuses, the ICE strategy (Ideology, Compromise, Ego), and why “when they go low, we go high” tends to outperform speaking truth to power.

Accommodations

What to request and how

  • Accommodations - Sorting out “am I marginalized or just stupid?”, recognizing neurominorities as specialists (not generalists), creative accommodation ideas, and arguments professors actually respond to.

University Professionalism

The hidden curriculum of academic norms

  • University Professionalism - The unspoken rules around how we dress, how we speak, and how to write professional emails to professors so your neurodivergence isn’t mistaken for carelessness or disrespect.

Picking Your Classes

Strategic course selection

  • Picking Your Classes - Choosing the career and educational experience you actually want, why the professor matters more than the course content, and pushing through honours restrictions and GPA cutoffs as a specialist rather than a generalist.

What Is Respect?

Recognizing healthy vs. hostile academic environments

  • What Is Respect? - Understanding what respectful treatment looks like in academic contexts, recognizing microaggressions for what they are, and knowing what to seek out instead.

Coursework: Assessments, Labs & Writing

Practical strategies for the day-to-day mechanics of getting through classes.

Assessments

Exam strategies and accommodations

  • Assessments - Testing resources (including McGill’s test-taking guides), tools like focus music for ADHD, and notes on Indigenous pedagogies of showing over telling that support memorization.

Labs

Navigating laboratory courses

  • Labs - Strategies for lab courses, including managing sensory overload, following procedures, and working with lab partners. (Section in progress.)

Papers & Essays

Writing academic papers

  • Papers & Essays - Research tools like Connected Papers for mapping a literature base, and strategies for breaking essay-writing into manageable steps. (Section in progress.)

Technical & Collaborative Work

Specialized support for technical coursework, group dynamics, and research.

Coding Classes

Programming and computer science courses

  • Coding Classes - Why coding is actually hard for neurodivergent learners, mentality and motivation strategies, “vibe coding” with other people’s code, and what to do when daily-practice advice doesn’t fit your brain.

Group Projects

Group work and project management

  • Group Projects - Toolboxes (When2Meet, Motion, Calendly), setting respectful and accessible boundaries in groups, and email templates for keeping the professor in the loop when the group falls through.

Models (Empirical/Theory)

Working with mathematical and statistical models

  • Models (Empirical/Theory) - Breaking down statistical, empirical, and economic models into their parts (assumptions, endogenous/exogenous variables, optimization, constraints) so they’re easier to study and apply on exams.

Research

Undergraduate research opportunities

  • Research - Spotting predatory journals (Beall’s List), protecting yourself from getting scooped, using OSF to timestamp your work, and naming your papers.

Beyond the Classroom

Roommates

Navigating shared living spaces

  • Roommates - Treating roommate selection like a job interview, red flags to watch for, what to do if you can’t read faces, and resources for recognizing unhealthy living situations.

Graduate School

Deciding whether to pursue advanced degrees

  • Graduate School - Why undergrad grades may under-represent your ability, focusing on what you can control, reaching out to advisors, funding your research (including disability-related research), and preparing for grad school as a neurominority.

Remember: Neurodivergent Upgrade exists to help you make choices that work for your brain and your future—not to make you fit a neurotypical timeline.