Added this as a comment on this beeb website article

For those who think dyslexic people are lazy, I have a few stories of my own experiences to help change their mind.

The stories vary from the harmless examples such as the time I got 99% for my computing standard grade, the one mark deduced being for spelling my name wrong.

To worse examples, such as how fared badly on my 3rd year genetic algorithms exam. Having read a question, it seemed hard, build a full genetic algorithm from scratch, I endeavoured to build a fully working genetic algorithm spanning two additional pages in java complete with advanced features such as hierarchical weighing.

Unfortunately I got zero marks as the question only asked me to describe not build a genetic algorithm, with a red comment in the margin adding that next time I should read the questions more thoroughly.

I can reassure readers that building a actual genetic algorithm is far harder than just describing vaguely how one works, this story was repeated through my university time and any time I have a job interview with a written exam.

Apart from exams I often ended up doing the practicals twice, once for myself and once for someone else, with them transcribing my spoken version of the practical write up into something which would receive marks, in real life we are judged on our results not our write up of our results, this makes this a moot point.

I had additional problems with my poor memory also related to dyslexic, I ended up cheating by bringing in a calculator with formulas on it, it was because I objected to having helped many in my class study and through their practicals only to fail the final exams myself, in real life we have these great things called books full of formulas which tend to help us dyslexics make this issue a moot point.

Of the 6 dyslexic people I knew who went to university in my year, I was the only to finish not being good at my course, but by passing my practical coursework by such large margins that they would mask my poor exam results,

Dyslexic people suffer badly at university, as the only survivor of my friend’s group my advice to other dyslexics is not to bother, learn a trade or work your way up an organisation. You will shine anywhere were you talent can show, I can tell you university is not currently one of those places

The Zap

In short, being dyslexic is hard, harder than most people think, especially at the start when you haven’t proved you can do anything, and the only way to prove your ability is through doing something your inherently bad at, for those that manage to pass this stage it can leave a slightly bitter taste in one’s mouth/and a chip on the shoulder so big, it takes years of work to get rid of.

Though I stand by my comment at the end, should of been a plumber

Ant