I know that the employment rate is low. I also know that I'm in college myself and getting accommodations that are helping me, because my school complies with the ADA and then some when it comes to disabled students. I've done two internships in the labs, and was a useful lab assistant both times. I know the situation is bad; but I also believe that it isn't impossible, and I believe it can be improved.

A low employment rate for disabled people is a problem; but it's not entirely due to the ADA being insufficient. There are a lot of other factors. There's the way that parents and doctors often teach disabled children that they shouldn't expect to work. There's the way that schools often have inadequate transition training. There are the many cultural biases that teach disabled kids, as they grow up, that they must fulfill the "disabled" social role and cannot stray outside those boundaries. In college, my disabled friends and I are addressing that, some of us for the first time, and realizing that yes, we can make our own way, and that we don't have to assume that the things we've been told all our lives are actually true.

Even gifted students like yourself can get into trouble precisely because they are gifted--because teachers assume that if you are intelligent in one area, you must be intelligent in all areas. I wasn't taught some extremely important life skills--some as basic as keeping oneself clean--because I was so good at schoolwork and instead was called lazy and rebellious for not knowing how to do them. And the opposite can happen: Students who aren't good at schoolwork will be assumed to have no other useful skills, even when they do. I know of one young woman who is horrible at math to the point of being unable to use a calculator, but such a genius at spelling and grammar that she would be a wonderful proofreader. And yet she is currently in a sheltered workshop because she is considered developmentally delayed (which she is--but they are ignoring her very real talent with language... this girl has an IQ of around 60 and learned to read at age three! Her skills are not even being used simply because she's being stereotyped).

The system needs to be changed. I know that; you know that. But I think maybe you've given up too soon.