Whoever told you that people with Asperger's are all good at computer programming is dead wrong. It makes me upset that someone would give you such terrible advice. Ignore what they said. If you are questioning whether you would be good at or would like computer programming, which it sounds like you are, then don't pursue that field.
I am a fellow Aspie. I see it as a badge of honor, not a curse. It means that you have a special way of thinking about the world that not many other people have experienced. I found it very helpful to connect with others who have been diagnosed.
Wrong Planet is an excellent online forum where you can do this. There is even a section specifically for job advice.
Are Aspies typically better at pattern recognition? Yes. Are they often logical thinkers who can be quite focused on technical details? Yes. Are they all expert computer programmers? Hell no. I have a history degree and now work as an archivist.
Career counselors are just regular people. They don't have some special innate ability to know exactly what you should be doing with your life. As annoying as it is to hear, only YOU can choose your path. I definitely understand how frustrating that is. I did not come by my current career overnight. When I was in high school, college, and even after college, I had a great deal of anxiety over what my career path would be. I could not figure out what I wanted to do, and was baffled at how it seemed to be so obvious to other people. I was envious of the society in the book The Giver, where everyone was assigned a career as a teenager. I wished someone would come along and just assign me a job.
Thank goodness that's not how things turned out. It just took time to figure out what I wanted to do, probably longer than most. In the meantime, I applied to a temp agency at a local university. A few months later I got a call from them and started work there in an HR department. Not thrilling stuff, but I did well and learned a lot. And learning what I DIDN'T want to spend my time doing helped me to realize what I DID want to spend my time doing. So I would say that, if you aren't yet sure what you want your career to be, don't focus so much on "career" right now. Focus on just finding a "job" instead. Something to get you by and pay the bills. And while that's happening, you can explore other fields and maybe eventually have some money saved up to take courses in those fields. And if you work for a university like I did, they may even give you a good discount on courses.
I think that books, TV, and movies give the perception that most people decide what they want to do, study in that field, then get a job in that field out of college. Not true. Most people aren't totally sure what they want to do, and get to their final "dream job" (if they ever even get to it) through a very circuitous route of odd jobs through different fields. In this way, having Asperger's has little or nothing to do with what you are going through at the moment. This is actually a way in which you can relate to neurotypicals (NTs). Do not feel rushed to find your perfect career today. Just find something that occupies your time and pays your bills, and work your way up from there.
