Lately I have seen an increasingly honest, and increasingly public discussion about the feelings of inadequacy that come with trying to be a scientist.
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I have found that the best strategy is to free yourself to openly admit your ignorance. Embrace the idea that all of us are awash in embarrassing levels of ignorance, and the quickest way to improve the situation is to admit your ignorance and find someone to teach you.
In particular, when some discussion is going on about a topic that you don’t understand, you should feel free to just admit that you don’t understand and ask someone to explain it to you.
If you find yourself on the other side of the conversation, and someone makes such an admission and request, there are only two acceptable responses:
Most commonly, your response will be some combination of 1 and 2. You will be able to explain some parts of the idea, and you will have to admit that there are other parts that you don’t understand well enough to explain. But between the two of you (or, even better, a larger group) you will quickly start filling in the gaps in each others’ knowledge.
- More Here
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- I might as well add my own brief admissions to this discussion:
- More or less every day, I struggle with feeling like I am insufficiently intelligent, insufficiently hardworking, and insufficiently creative to be a physicist.
- These feelings have persisted since the beginning of my undergraduate years, and I expect them to continue in some form or another throughout the remainder of my career.
- I often feel like what few successes I’ve had were mostly due to luck, or that I “tricked” people into believing that I was better than I actually am.
I have found that the best strategy is to free yourself to openly admit your ignorance. Embrace the idea that all of us are awash in embarrassing levels of ignorance, and the quickest way to improve the situation is to admit your ignorance and find someone to teach you.
In particular, when some discussion is going on about a topic that you don’t understand, you should feel free to just admit that you don’t understand and ask someone to explain it to you.
If you find yourself on the other side of the conversation, and someone makes such an admission and request, there are only two acceptable responses:
- Admit that you, also, don’t understand it very well.
- Explain the topic as best as you can.
Most commonly, your response will be some combination of 1 and 2. You will be able to explain some parts of the idea, and you will have to admit that there are other parts that you don’t understand well enough to explain. But between the two of you (or, even better, a larger group) you will quickly start filling in the gaps in each others’ knowledge.
- More Here
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