I have written previously on my experience with “Imposter Syndrome” at Notre Dame. Put simply, I am the least experienced (in many ways) of the graduate students, and many undergraduate students could probably do my job ten times better than me.
But enough about that.
I would like to share what happens when you get out of the bubble and what that can do for not just yourself, but for an entire community.
Two weeks ago was one of the hardest academic weeks for me. Ironically, the struggle stemmed from how well I was doing. I was no longer drowning in the sea of work and learning, so everyone assumed that I was capable of taking on more responsibilities. Being the triple A battery type person I am, I took every single opportunity that came my way.
While I did have the confidence to ask questions, I did not take the time to really hash out the details when needed. This led to me looking completely lost in my Cell Culturing lesson, lots of poorly timed experiments, and stress.
I seriously had no clue what was going on.
I did not want to give up all of my responsibilities, but I didn’t want to look like an idiot either. I tried to cover up my mistakes, highlight what I knew I was good at, and tried to distract people from my struggles. I made jokes about my many mistakes with the students I was teaching to convince them that I was cool and worth listening to.
It worked!
No one seemed to notice that I was crumbling under the pressure, and I made it through the week.
Highlighting one’s strengths is a great way to deal with low confidence. If we know that we have a valuable skill, then we can utilize it in order to move a project forward. Sure, it may be a bit tricky in places, but using your skills can help you gain the confidence to fix your mistakes and improve for the future.
The thing is…not every situation can be masked with our strengths.
Let’s say you’re baking a cake but only know how to decorate it. By only emphasizing your skills, you will just end up with a pile of frosting on a plate instead of a pretty little cake with flowers on it.
What happens when you can’t make up for your weaknesses?
What are you supposed to do when you actually have no clue what is going on?
So far I did not have to deal with this issue. All of my classes were in my field, and once I learned two or three things in my lab at the beginning of the semetser, the rest was just troubleshooting and working with my advisor’s wife. I figured that I always could figure it out, and in the meantime I could just fiddle with my classes and experiments with what I knew.
Then it became very clear that I could not do that in all of my classes.
I was particularly stressed out by my Molecular Biology II class. It was another paper discussion based course, like most grad classes, but there are only six kids in the class. We would have to participate quite a bit.
It’s all about cancer.
I know just about nothing when it comes to cancer.
So imagine my panic when I realized that I would have to participate in class discussion with five intelligent and talented students. I was worried that they would judge me, or that they would make some comment that would trigger the teachers in to giving me a lower score.
I stressed about this class for an entire week.
We got in to class and started a group discussion on a paper about new mouse models for cancer. I presented the first figure because I knew what all of the numbers and labels meant, and there was an easy discussion question. Again, I highlighted my strengths and avoided my lack of understanding.
I was still too scared to admit how lost I was.
Now I have this great friend named Lauren who knows herself and is not afraid to admit that she doesn't know something. Lauren just turned around to one of the boys at the second figure and blatantly said that she didn’t know anything about the experiment we were analyzing.
Instead of being judgmental, the boy simply explained the experiment. What seemed like such a scary action at the beginning turned out to be the most beneficial part of the discussion.
Inspired by my friend's confidence, I started to ask questions myself.
The discussion flourished.
Because someone was willing to admit they didn’t understand something, we were all able to have an open and honest and in depth conversation about methods that many of us have never seen. I learned more in that paper discussion than I had in most paper discussions in grad school.
And it was all because someone was willing to admit they didn't know it all.
It’s totally ok to not understand everything. We can’t all be experts in everything. What we can do is recognize the experts among us and ask them questions. Maybe someday they will come back to us with a question in our own field, maybe not. All that matters is that you have the confidence to seek out the people who can help you the most. Sometimes you can help yourself, but there are many instances where you can’t do it all.
However, not all experts are perfect.
And the experts that are willing to admit their failures are the best kinds of experts.
Take my advisor’s wife for example. She has been my mentor ever since I joined the Vaughan lab in my REU. When it comes to cloning or DNA work, she can do just about anything. So much in fact that I often refer to her as a wizard. Every time I have a question, want to make a new DNA construct, or can’t seem to make things work, my advisor’s wife always has an answer or knows where we can find it.
But she’s not perfect
And she reminds me every chance she gets.
I often joke that the Vaughan lab took me solely because I like to clone and can make jokes about failure with Dr. Mrs. Vaughan all the time. Last Friday, she was showing me a particularly difficult technique that she was doing to move another project along. The entire time she was telling me about how she had screwed it up, from technically difficult problems to simple mistakes like putting the gel in the wrong direction.
She does this every time I learn an experiment.
She laughs off every mistake, and she makes sure I knew every single one she made.
What I especially didn’t realize was that I had started to do the same thing with her with my own students. Somehow I had taken on the mentoring style of my own mentor, showing my failure filled notebook and laughing about the biggest mistakes I made in the lab thus far. What I did not realize until that week is that those moments when I was laughing with Dr. Mrs. Vaughan in the back of the lab were some of the best teaching moments I ever had with her.
Those jokes I made in Cell Research Lab, while a bit off base, were an opportunity for me to teach the students. My daily reminders of failed experiments over the past 33 weeks to my mentee are an opportunity for me to steer her in the right direction. By sharing our errors, we allow the students to learn from our mistakes and avoid them in the future.
So yes, I may be failing.
But I am failing with style.
Through the combined efforts of my friend Lauren and my mentor, I saw just how important it is to not only reveal our weaknesses to ourselves, but also to allow them in to our daily lives. Whether it may be through asking for help or by teaching through our mistakes, there is an enormous benefit to being transparent with others.
You may be able to help someone open up
You may be able to help someone avoid a pitfall you fell in to
Most importantly, you give the world an example to go off of so that they too can benefit from the answers you receive and the lessons you give. By setting an example of vulnerability and authenticity, you allow the world to see that perfection is not possible, but we can strive for greatness every day.
And when you fail or can’t understand something.
It’s ok to laugh.
Because that’s how you fail with style.
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