Tag Archives: failure

“I’m bad at math,” and other lies I tell myself.

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This past week, I found out that I was offered a spot in an internship program that I applied for a few months ago. I am incredibly excited, but most of all I am so relieved that it worked out, and that I have one less thing to worry about.

This internship acceptance came at a good time, especially because these past few months have been filled with constant talk of internships, jobs, majors, study-abroad, housing, and all of the other long-term stuff that sends my mind into an anxious whirlwind. I have had many moments where I have felt like a “failure” for not securing an internship, and for not majoring in something “useful” or “lucrative.”

I recently declared a major in “Humanities: Interdisciplinary Studies in Culture,” and while I think it is a good fit for me, I often find myself wishing that I could have majored in something more “impressive,” like biochemistry or neuroscience. Nothing is stopping me from pursuing those majors, but they just don’t feel like majors that are right for me. In addition, for most of my life I have convinced myself that I am horrible at math and science, which rules out a lot of majors and minors. In hindsight, I think a lot of my hatred for these subjects stems (no pun intended) from some negative experiences I had with these subjects in elementary and middle school. I have told myself that I was bad at certain subjects for so long, that I eventually internalized it and began to hate them as well.

It also doesn’t help that I have a twin brother who is much more mathematically inclined. He is majoring in computer science, and I often find myself jealous of the fact that he is, in my opinion, pursuing such an impressive major.

I have done a lot of reflecting on my strengths and weaknesses this past semester, and I think I have become much more at-peace with the fact that I enjoy social sciences and humanities much more than I enjoy math or most forms of science. The thing is, we need all sorts of people in the world, and the fact that I am not going down a pre-med track does not make me any less valuable as a human, it just means I have different interests, strengths, and goals than some other people. Does the fact that I’m not majoring in a STEM field make me ‘less smart’ or ‘less hard-working?” Not really. Will people judge me for majoring in a kind of vague and potentially ‘less rigorous’ major? Probably. Does that matter? Not really.

And while I am still pretty convinced that I don’t have a mind that naturally “gets” math, I had a really positive experience with a science class last semester that pushed me outside of my academic comfort zone, and really caused me to rethink some of the lies and half-truths that I tell myself. I took a chemistry class called Land Air and Ocean Science to fulfill my natural science GE, and even though I was filled with trepidation (it had been quite a few years since I had taken a chemistry course,) I ended up LOVING the class. A large part of this was due to the fact that the professor understood that everyone in the class was taking it for their GE, and that many of us did not consider ourselves to be “sciency.” Thus, she tried really hard to make the material clear, engaging, and straightforward. Like I said, I have had some really negative experiences with math and science classes that left me feeling stupid and incompetent, so this class was such a breath of fresh air.

Overall, this class also helped me realize that it is not always helpful to narrowly categorize ourselves. As mentioned, my twin brother and I kind of grew up knowing that he was the “math-and-science-one,” and I was the “reading-writing-social-science-one.” We both placed ourselves in narrow categories that probably did us both a disservice through making us believe that we weren’t really capable of doing the things we were less talented at.

Me, when it comes to math.

Me, when it comes to math.

There have probably been a lot of things I have missed out on in life because I have convinced myself that I’m bad at it. I am now determined to stop categorizing myself in unhelpful ways, so that I will be more willing to go out of my comfort zone and try new things—even if I fail at first. Honestly, if I ended up loving a chemistry class—something I never thought was possible—then I can imagine there are so many other “lies” I tell myself that are probably not entirely valid. In the end, I have mostly come to terms with the fact that it’s okay for me not to love certain subjects, but I am also determined to challenge some of my internalized notions about what I “like” and “don’t” like, and I suggest that we all try this exercise out more often.

The Best Rejection I’ve Ever Had

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Source: Levo.com. The Levo League is an online community of professional women, check them out! I’ve linked this image to their website.

In my last post, I was preparing for a big interview with a big firm for a summer internship. Long story short, I didn’t get the position and was crushed (see my 5 Stages of Rejection below). However, every cloud has a silver lining, and I’m excited to share what I learned.

Just to be clear, I loved the firm and was so hopeful I’d get an offer. Everything I’d heard about it only made me want to work there more: the chance to get solid accounting experience at a well-reputed firm, the emphasis on diversity of thought and community service, the learning culture, the big city location… I was even enthralled with the generous maternal leave policy. (I’m nowhere near that stage in my life yet, but as the daughter of a single working mother and past student in Core II Economics of Gender and Choice, it’s a big factor in my decision-making process when evaluating company fit.) So when I received that sad, carefully phrased rejection email, my self-confidence took a big hit.

How did I react? “Jasmine’s 5 Stages of Rejection” goes something like this:

1)   Crushing paralysis and self-doubt. Usually includes putting on my pink fluffy robe, crying in the fetal position, and questioning my path in life.
2)   Eventually I’ll attempt to be strong. This stage involves trying to convince myself everything happens for a reason and sending cheerful, make-the-best-of-this messages to the people who knew I was interviewing.
3)   Inevitably I feel like a liar and start crying again. I’ll phone my mother/older brother/boyfriend and ask them to tell me that I’m not a failure and that I’m going to be okay.

https://38.media.tumblr.com/38582f483d172130d8ed3d87d90d34f0/tumblr_mqncpfyLmW1sqhiuzo1_400.gif

Thankfully they aren’t like Edna Mode from The Incredibles.

4)   Netflix. Nature documentaries on ocean and snow environments are really soothing.
5)   For me, to learn a lesson is to find the silver lining that allows me to move on. So after rebooting my emotional system, that’s what I try to do. It’s frustrating enough to fail, but to not know what I did wrong? To repeat my mistakes in the future? Even worse.

The day after I received the news, I decided to email my interviewers and ask for feedback. Here’s the text I wrote. Feel free to use it if you need!

Dear XXX,

Although I was not offered an internship at XXX this summer, I continue to hold your firm in high regard and hope to find a place at XXX after graduation. I am writing to ask–following my interview with you, do you have any feedback for me? I would hate to make the same mistakes again in future interviews and would appreciate any advice you might have as I move forward in my search for summer employment.

Sincerely,
Jasmine

Vicki at CP&R cautioned me not to expect a reply, as companies’ HR policies may prevent interviewers from providing that information due to legal reasons. So it was a very pleasant surprise to receive the following response from one of my interviewers:

Hi Jasmine,

Thanks for reaching out! All three of us liked you and thought you were very well spoken. However, we struggled with your current lack of accounting experience and decided that at the end of the day we could not extend an offer to you at the current point in time without knowing whether you would have sufficient technical accounting knowledge by the time the internship starts. I definitely encourage you to apply again next year, either for an internship or a full time position depending on where you sit with your accounting units and do not get discouraged that you did not get the offer this time. My only advice to you from our interview is to take more accounting classes, do as well as you can in them, and be ready to discuss them next time around. Best of luck to you and I hope to talk to you again next year!

Sincerely,
XXX

Vicki had also told me to respond carefully. I needed to acknowledge their response and thank them, but could not misconstrue a reply as an invitation to further plead my case. Finding out that I had been rejected because I didn’t have enough classes yet, and not because of some irrevocable personal difference, definitely put my mind at ease. And my interviewer’s encouragement to reapply made this just about the best rejection I’ve ever had. So I sent a thank you to my interviewer saying just that, and then moved on with my search for summer employment. Wahoo constructive action!

To those of you who have never ever failed at anything and thus have never ever needed to learn from failure: I’m not sure what kind of a life you lead, but you’re probably doing something wrong. To those of you who have failed at some point in your job search, how did you deal with it? What did you learn? Post your stories in the comments!