Tag Archives: fear

FOMO–A College Phenomenon

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On New Student Orientation day, Scripps should have posted signs around campus reading “CAUTION: Upon entering college you will experience painful bouts of ‘fear-of-missing-out’ syndrome.” Okay, maybe I’m being a little dramatic, but the common desire to experience everything the 5Cs and surrounding area have to offer while juggling sleep, school work, health, family, friends, and extracurriculars is a real problem that college students face. The fear of missing out is commonly referred to by the acronym “FOMO.”

Across the Consortium there is a club for any interest. There are information sessions outlining careers and internships and study abroad opportunities. There are speakers giving lectures every day of the week. There are sanctioned parties Wednesday through Saturday. There is so much to do, but sometimes life puts on the breaks. My workload for AISS gets in the way. My TSL article sneaks up on me. My daily workout gets pushed back. More and more things build upon each other and going to the dining hall even becomes a task.

At the end of a hard week, sometimes an early bedtime with some much needed rest is just plain necessary. As I am laying in bed, I check social media and email. Every week I am inundated by Facebook events, Event’s Digest notifications, Ventfull posts, and emails giving me information on activities and events around campus. Events and activities that are going on while I lay in bed. Like most students, I am interested in activities and I want to go meet new people and have a good time. At the back of my head I am also thinking: I need to network. I need to get good grades. I need to have the freshman year experience. I need to go out and meet people. Most of all, I need to sleep, but I have this gut wrenching fear of missing out.

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College forces people to find a balance and FOMO skews this balance. So far in my Scripps experience I have experienced FOMO more times than I can count, however, I am now slowly developing my own schedule and making decisions on what is best for me. We as busy college students need to understand that not every party is going to be amazing and not every information session will shape our lives. Realizing that down-time is not only amazing, but necessary to remain balanced, reduces the FOMO.

Being at a college like Scripps that offers so many opportunities is both a blessing and a curse. Striking the balance between work, play, rest, and all other facets of life is necessary. The fear of missing out will always persist, but prioritizing can reduce the syndrome that is “FOMO” and allow an extra hour or two of well deserved rest.

Fear, Accomplishment, and Major Decisions?

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I’ve spent the last few weeks obsessing about a project. It was very detailed and involved organizing a lot of very technical information. I’m bad at details, I was scared of making mistakes interpreting the technical details, and generally spent a lot of time freaking out in front of my spreadsheets. (Not to mention complaining to my sister, mother, significant other, bestie from high school, Scripps friends, etc…)

But the last few days I’ve been in a meeting at which the fruits of my labor, cards visualizing the development scheduling of different applications’ pieces of interfaces, are displayed all over the wall. My cards are driving the discussion, and as intended, getting moved around and edited. I’ll be updating the spreadsheet to keep track of key changes. Despite my fears of being known as the intern who messed up the big meeting, I’ve been getting a lot of great acknowledgement from my team and the larger project for my work.

This has become a bit of a pattern for me, both in my blog posts (sorry for the repetition!) and in my personal life. I think that I am not up to a challenge, but I am. I imagine every permutation of failure, work really hard, and then…don’t fail. This feels good. It might not be the most efficient or reasonable way to get work done (I wish I could skip the self-doubt part) but it does work for me. And this process, silly as it may sound, is actually an improvement personally from a time where I would get stuck in my worries and never overcome my fears.

I think I’ve gotten better at getting through my crisis worry mode because of practice. Successfully taking math, a subject that reduced me to tears in high school, has acclimated me to tackling the unfamiliar and challenging. I know how to work through the scary stuff, even though it still scares me. The way through is just lots of work, lots of time, and lots of questions. It sounds obvious, but it can be terrifying to do all of those things when the possibility of failure, and all that effort wasted, looms.

I’m a firm believer that practice makes perfecter (clearly I haven’t quite achieved perfection in grammar). Thinking about this habit in my work life and my academic life has helped me solidify my plan to major in Mathematical Economics. Economics fascinates me, and math both interests me and scares me out of my wits. But I want to keep on practicing working through that fear, because out in the working world, I’m going to encounter problems that seem unsolvable. I want the toolkit to face those problems down.

Overcoming the Fear of Networking

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I recently read a post on LinkedIn titled “23 Signs You’re Secretly An Introvert.”  I’ve never considered myself an introvert—I’m never one of the quiet ones in class, I am a relatively social person, and I’m even a tour guide for Scripps (where your main job is connecting and interacting with the people on your tour)—but Gregoire, the author of the piece, has convinced me that I am, in fact, an Introvert.

Gregoire presents her article in numerical list with #4 being the number that I found most intriguing.  It reads, “Networking makes you feel like a phony.”

I’ve been told over and over again by mentors and peers that networking leads to as many, if not more job offers after graduation compared to completing the grueling process of applying to numerous companies that interest you throughout your job search.

Yet, the process of networking pains me.  As Gregoire explains, networking feels “disingenuous” for introverts.  Not only disingenuous because it doesn’t have the authenticity in interactions that Gregorie suggests introverts need, but because I didn’t think it was fair for me to be given an edge that perhaps some of my peers may not have access to.

Nevertheless, this summer I decided to face my fear and begin networking.  If I was so set on having a job after graduation, I knew I needed to put in the work to get there.  Part of that work was going to be networking so I figured I should start as soon as possible.  I contacted my parents and mentioned I was thinking about going into Human Resources and asked if they knew anyone who worked in Human Resources.  They did, and in fact, I knew many of the people on my own as well (parents of friends, parents of peers from my high school, family friends).  So I began “networking.”

I called and emailed with various adults in Human Resource fields, and it surprised me how willing to talk to me each of the people were.  They were getting no benefit out of the conversations and often times, the interaction was actually taking time and energy from their day.  Yet, I never contacted someone and had them turn me down or say they had no time.

The authenticity that I looked for in the relationships with people I networked with is something that will never be fully there.  There’s no way to connect deeply with everyone you network with, but it doesn’t have to be “small talk with the end goal of advancing your career” as Gregoire suggests Introverts believe.  I’ve learned so much about Human Resources and my career search, in general, from the people I networked with.  I feel that I’ve really tried to genuinely learn from the people I talked with and to go into conversations with more than just having an end goal of advancing my career.  For an introvert, being able to establish more than just career advancement in these relationships has been the key to overcoming my fear of networking.

So What Now? And In Other News I’m Kinda Sorta scaredofmakingdecisivedecisions

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It is finally summer. A time when the sun is shining brightly, my calendar is as good as empty, and time feels like it has stopped. Everything. Is. At. A. Standstill. At the second I dove into my bed and fell asleep before my eyes were fully shut, some cosmic force switched a lever that put my life on standby.

Actually I know why it feels like life is on hold. It is currently the waiting period for all of my summer endeavors.  It’s kind of funny how projects fall into a certain rhythm of crests and troughs of activity and inactivity. Even more interesting is how their rhythm synchronizes with each other. I’ve done what needs to be done and pretty much all I can do at the moment for the radio program. I’ve attended the trainings for my other volunteer position and I’m waiting for the final clearance from the director. I’ve been busy with both projects in practically the same week and now I have some down time. Nothing more I can do right? NOPE.

(Just as a side note: the answer is always no.)

There are final decisions to be made regarding my radio program that finalizes everything. Specifically, what material I want to air first, when I want to air it, and how the program might progress. These decisions kinda sorta scare me and therefore I’m approaching them very cautiously, mulling over the options, and thinking about the ramifications of my decisions.

I do not find these decisions to easy to make. For me, decisions in generally are not easy to make. Like choosing which pair of pants to wear. If I’m wearing skirts, most likely, it’s because I gave up on deciding between two pairs of embarrassingly similar pants. (But they feel different you know? Like they fall on your hips differently, have slack in different places, and are tight in others? Right?) For those of you who are familiar with the Myers-Briggs personality test I embody the characteristics of Judging (J) which means I like order, organization, and details. A lot. I make lists obsessively and if I could I would organize the world. Googling neat bento boxes bring me so much joy I can’t even…The tumblr thingsorganizedneatly, asdfkkhakgj. Going to Ikea, ~heaven~. I really really really identify with the woman in the video by the way. Pssss: It’s only 15 seconds long and may bring you happiness.

Lunch Box Ikea Commerical

The problem is, a list that has the options for what, when, and how, complete with pros and cons (and possible pros and cons) is daunting to look at. I don’t feel comfortable proceeding without having given a reasonably complete consideration of all the possibilities but also I need to proceed. Some considerations include: what is going help me achieve the ultimate goal of the program most effectively, what is going to be the least taxing to execute aka the most possible, and which considerations should be given more weight. Good news: I have a couple of weeks to finalize everything. Bad news: I have a couple of weeks to finalize everything.

If anything my lists of possibilities shows me that I need to consult with people I trust. Fear is healthy to some extent before it becomes paralyzing and that is so not an option and will not be an option because I’m driven to do this project and have so much support. I moved a lot as a kid and I had to go through lots of omg-I-have-to-attend-yet-another-new-school situations. I dealt with it by thinking to myself, “I’m scared and I have reason to be scared but I’m more excited than I am anything else because everything new and unknown has potential and potential is exciting”. Same tactics apply. Rinse and repeat as needed.