uh oh.....
yeah so, i go through these phases like every couple of weeks, at least once or twice a semester.......i question what the hell i am doing with my life in college. and seriously, for such a long time, i wanted nothing more than to have a career picked out and a major in college so that when people asked me "what are you majoring in?" and "what do you want to do with that major?" that i'd actually have an answer. and ever since i have, i've had mixed feelings everytime i've answered those questions. like when people ask about my major, and i say chem. they look kind of shocked...and i guess i sort of enjoy people thinking that i'm studying something difficult and that i must be smart because of it. but i guess my thing is, i feel that its too much pressure to be smart. now i'm not saying that i'm stupid, because i don't think i'm incapable...but i feel like i can't live up to the expectations from others, and from myself.
i constantly find myself questioning what makes me think that in 7 years or so, that i could be at the same scholarly level as my professors(whom i hold in extremely high regard)? what makes me think that i could do that? sheer determination can only take you so far, and i'm not even sure i have that. no amount of determination can overcome a mind that cannot handle the work. and it terrifies me that i may come to a point where i will realize that i'm not capable of finishing the work i have set out for myself to do. i'm terrified everytime a get an exam and there is a question that i don't know if i did right, or even worse, i don't even know how to answer. it terrifies me everytime i come across someone else, my own age, that understands something that i don't. it terrifies me and pisses me off. it terrifies me because my whole life, the best thing i've ever had going for me was that i was one of the "smart kids." and now i'm feeling less and less smart....i don't know, maybe i do have unrealistic expectations for my intecllectual ability at this point, but growing up i never felt that there was work that i wouldn't be able to understand in time or with age. but the older i get, the more i realize that i've stopped becoming smarter and merely plateaued. ---a hopeful chemistry grad. student CANNOT plateau!---
and i'm so afraid because i feel like, every test i take for a professor, they are judging how smart i am. and i know that i will always make errors on exams....i'm just like that. no matter how much i study, i will always goof up on something stupid, that i will realize i did only after i've left the exam. and i feel like i need to justify those mistakes to my professor so they know i just made a mistake, and not that i don't know the material. and i'm so afraid that when i need to take independant lab the professor that i ask won't accept me because i'm not a good enough student for them to take on. and when i feel like that i get into my whole, come on val this is towson, the other students you are competing with are not rhodes scholars, these professors prob. do not think you are stupid. and they prob. don't remember all the mistakes i make on exams because how many other students do they have? there is no way (even for anal-retentive discordia) to remember the mistakes every single student made. but regardless, i feel i have something to prove to them. i feel like i need to kick their courses in the ass because someday i want to be in their postition...a postition that would allow me to not only know the perfect answer to every exam question, but the answer to EVERYTHING else. i want that kind of knowledge so bad, but i feel like attaining it will cause my head to explode. i just keep thinking, when my professor was my age, and taking this course, how well did they do? i bet they were perfect, knew everything. and even though i try to convince myself that's not likely to be the case. that they probably got things wrong, and made mistakes, and they've had years of teaching this same material to understand it inside and out....i often wonder when and how they knew this was what they were going to do with their lives. when did they know they were going to work towards their PhD's? how did they know they could do it? why did they choose chem? because these are the questions i am asking myself. these are the questions that i am desperately trying to find the answers to....and to believe them. (its one thing to find an answer, its entirely something else to believe it.)
and i hate this becuase i will feel really good about myself one week, because i'm nailing questions right and left, i'm understanding stuff, and i'm explaining it to others.....and then the next week i find myself struggling to grasp something, needed it explained to me, and feeling that my week of self esteem was really just arrogance. and i HATE IT!!!! i hate this cycle that i'm perpetually in. i hate that i am questioning my decisions. but i'm am too afraid to pin myself down to something. and choosing a grad. school and a grad. program is definately nailing yourself down. when you do your PhD work, it is not a time for you to explore new things, it is a time where you have a chosen subject/topic and you focus on that for YEARS!!! how am i going to do that? i barely have the attention span to cook dinner, how am i going to dedicate several years of my life to researching the SAME THING!? and then after i've spent my early 20's researching something, i'm supposed to enter the acadmeic arena as a "specialist" in that research area.....i'm at the point where i'm going to have to make decisions that will drastically change/determine the rest of my life. and that terrifies me...........and i thought college applications were bad.
ugh, this is such a whiney entry, but hey, get over it. we've all got to whine sometimes......
i constantly find myself questioning what makes me think that in 7 years or so, that i could be at the same scholarly level as my professors(whom i hold in extremely high regard)? what makes me think that i could do that? sheer determination can only take you so far, and i'm not even sure i have that. no amount of determination can overcome a mind that cannot handle the work. and it terrifies me that i may come to a point where i will realize that i'm not capable of finishing the work i have set out for myself to do. i'm terrified everytime a get an exam and there is a question that i don't know if i did right, or even worse, i don't even know how to answer. it terrifies me everytime i come across someone else, my own age, that understands something that i don't. it terrifies me and pisses me off. it terrifies me because my whole life, the best thing i've ever had going for me was that i was one of the "smart kids." and now i'm feeling less and less smart....i don't know, maybe i do have unrealistic expectations for my intecllectual ability at this point, but growing up i never felt that there was work that i wouldn't be able to understand in time or with age. but the older i get, the more i realize that i've stopped becoming smarter and merely plateaued. ---a hopeful chemistry grad. student CANNOT plateau!---
and i'm so afraid because i feel like, every test i take for a professor, they are judging how smart i am. and i know that i will always make errors on exams....i'm just like that. no matter how much i study, i will always goof up on something stupid, that i will realize i did only after i've left the exam. and i feel like i need to justify those mistakes to my professor so they know i just made a mistake, and not that i don't know the material. and i'm so afraid that when i need to take independant lab the professor that i ask won't accept me because i'm not a good enough student for them to take on. and when i feel like that i get into my whole, come on val this is towson, the other students you are competing with are not rhodes scholars, these professors prob. do not think you are stupid. and they prob. don't remember all the mistakes i make on exams because how many other students do they have? there is no way (even for anal-retentive discordia) to remember the mistakes every single student made. but regardless, i feel i have something to prove to them. i feel like i need to kick their courses in the ass because someday i want to be in their postition...a postition that would allow me to not only know the perfect answer to every exam question, but the answer to EVERYTHING else. i want that kind of knowledge so bad, but i feel like attaining it will cause my head to explode. i just keep thinking, when my professor was my age, and taking this course, how well did they do? i bet they were perfect, knew everything. and even though i try to convince myself that's not likely to be the case. that they probably got things wrong, and made mistakes, and they've had years of teaching this same material to understand it inside and out....i often wonder when and how they knew this was what they were going to do with their lives. when did they know they were going to work towards their PhD's? how did they know they could do it? why did they choose chem? because these are the questions i am asking myself. these are the questions that i am desperately trying to find the answers to....and to believe them. (its one thing to find an answer, its entirely something else to believe it.)
and i hate this becuase i will feel really good about myself one week, because i'm nailing questions right and left, i'm understanding stuff, and i'm explaining it to others.....and then the next week i find myself struggling to grasp something, needed it explained to me, and feeling that my week of self esteem was really just arrogance. and i HATE IT!!!! i hate this cycle that i'm perpetually in. i hate that i am questioning my decisions. but i'm am too afraid to pin myself down to something. and choosing a grad. school and a grad. program is definately nailing yourself down. when you do your PhD work, it is not a time for you to explore new things, it is a time where you have a chosen subject/topic and you focus on that for YEARS!!! how am i going to do that? i barely have the attention span to cook dinner, how am i going to dedicate several years of my life to researching the SAME THING!? and then after i've spent my early 20's researching something, i'm supposed to enter the acadmeic arena as a "specialist" in that research area.....i'm at the point where i'm going to have to make decisions that will drastically change/determine the rest of my life. and that terrifies me...........and i thought college applications were bad.
ugh, this is such a whiney entry, but hey, get over it. we've all got to whine sometimes......