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I'll preface that I've been diagnosed with ADHD and I know a decent number of other people with it. Additionally, I'm in my mid 20s so I was a student somewhat

I'll preface that I've been diagnosed with ADHD and I know a decent number of other people with it. Additionally, I'm in my mid 20s so I was a student somewhat recently as well. ADHD isn't about bragging, it isn't a way to excuse personal failing, and it isn't a clever ploy to get access to some edge that puts you at an advantage against the rest of your peers. People without ADHD like to joke about how great Adderall and other ADHD drugs are and how "lucky" we are to have them like they are an advantage. I don't like taking my medication and it's basically a choice for me whether I want to be productive or be a person. I struggle to stay focused/directed on tasks regardless of whether I enjoy them or not if I don't take my medication. However if I do take it I essentially lose all creativity and ability to innovate. I basically become a drone. For me it's a careful juggling of what I need to do in a day and how much I can "get away with" my inability to focus on a task in exchange for being able to multi-task and/or solve problems creatively. I've tried all kinds of time management and focus improvement systems/habits. They work to an extent but as soon as there is some kind of "disturbance" in my environment, the efforts might as well be for naught and it'll be an hour or so detour unless I had taken my medication that day. On top of this context switching is effectively impossible for me with or without medication. If I'm changing what I'm doing it'll be a minimum of at least 4 hours before I'm even slightly productive. I can only work on one project at a time because of this. As a student this nearly killed me time and time again. You can't manage 5-7 classes with entirely different subjects if it takes you half a day to properly switch your focus and be able to focus. Additionally there's the constant burnout and depression like symptoms on top of the focus and context switching issues which only add to the difficulty of being a functional human being. People don't realise that these are symptoms of ADHD but they are. When I end up burnt out due to stress or overwork it becomes effectively permanent. The last time I ended up burnt out in University I took an entire semester off (~9 months) and even after I returned it hadn't recovered. During that period I was constantly exhausted and every task took far longer than expected and I struggled far more than I reasonably should have. Now I have to carefully balance my life because if I end up stressed from work for too long I can barely function and my productivity effectively drops to 0 for months at a time. I could write pages going into the other ADHD derived issues I face but they are rather personal and I've already written enough as is so I'll leave it at that. Trust me when I say that we aren't happy we have ADHD and we aren't using it to brag or get an advantage. I hate my medication but it's the only thing that brings me even remotely close to being on an even footing with my peers.

itronitron 5y ago
My personal opinion is that the current educational paradigm is not a good fit for many students and (or because) the educational system places students into an adversarial/competitive environment. We wouldn't tolerate school athletics to require students to take steroids in order to pass Gym so why should it ever be expected for a student to need to take Adderall or another ADHD drug to complete an academic class?
- jacoblambda 5y ago
  The difference is that most of us don't function in a normal working environment without our medication either. I'm lucky that my chosen profession (SWE) largely gives me the autonomy to focus on tasks one at a time and that I can avoid having meetings spaced throughout the day. Most of the rest of "us" however aren't that lucky and will struggle significantly more than they already do if they didn't have that medication. I guess the comparison would be if someone needed to take steroids just to be able to function in day to day life, would it not be expected that they would be taking it as a student? As an example, should students with muscular atrophy or hormonal issues be prevented from taking steroids because it could potentially give them an advantage in gym class? Additionally, I know my medication isn't a great match for me but it's the best out of everything I've tried. Maybe in this sense (and since it's a mental/non-physical issue) the better comparison would be to chronic depression and antidepressants. Essentially, to the best of my knowledge the medication I am currently taking works the best for me but it still only gets me 70-80% of the way to where a normal person would be and the side-effects bring me down 10-20% in another way. In the end the medication gets me half way to functional and I have to structure my life around making up that other half. At no point have I ever considered that my medication was giving me an advantage but rather that it lets me just barely see the starting line.

itronitron 5y ago

My personal opinion is that the current educational paradigm is not a good fit for many students and (or because) the educational system places students into an adversarial/competitive environment. We wouldn't tolerate school athletics to require students to take steroids in order to pass Gym so why should it ever be expected for a student to need to take Adderall or another ADHD drug to complete an academic class?

jacoblambda 5y ago
The difference is that most of us don't function in a normal working environment without our medication either. I'm lucky that my chosen profession (SWE) largely gives me the autonomy to focus on tasks one at a time and that I can avoid having meetings spaced throughout the day. Most of the rest of "us" however aren't that lucky and will struggle significantly more than they already do if they didn't have that medication. I guess the comparison would be if someone needed to take steroids just to be able to function in day to day life, would it not be expected that they would be taking it as a student? As an example, should students with muscular atrophy or hormonal issues be prevented from taking steroids because it could potentially give them an advantage in gym class? Additionally, I know my medication isn't a great match for me but it's the best out of everything I've tried. Maybe in this sense (and since it's a mental/non-physical issue) the better comparison would be to chronic depression and antidepressants. Essentially, to the best of my knowledge the medication I am currently taking works the best for me but it still only gets me 70-80% of the way to where a normal person would be and the side-effects bring me down 10-20% in another way. In the end the medication gets me half way to functional and I have to structure my life around making up that other half. At no point have I ever considered that my medication was giving me an advantage but rather that it lets me just barely see the starting line.