Confidence

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Around this time of the semester, I tend to get a few students who are feeling defeated and need a boost. Sometimes I put on my motivational speaker hat and I try to help them gain the confidence to continue. But sometimes, motivation can’t come from an external source, it has to come from you. No one is naturally great at everything. It’s a matter of having the confidence to know that if you work at something and seek creative solutions, you can achieve anything you set your mind to. Many times, I have seen a student say that they are just not good at something, and as a result they are more prone to dismiss the challenge at hand and give up.
What’s the difference between failure and success? The power of the mind. Stanford psychology professor Carol Dweck in her research paper, “Is math a gift? Beliefs that put females at risk,” found that women who believe mathematical ability can be developed, as opposed to seeing it as a natural gift, are more likely to have higher grades. Women are often conditioned to think that some people, more specifically men, are just born with a “math brain.” As a result, they might lack confidence when facing any roadblocks in the coarse material because they think they just can’t do it. When I read this awhile back, it made me realize that just because math seems hard, doesn’t mean I should think oh well, I’m not naturally good at it. I just have to input the hours of work and seek new methods to understand it, like asking more questions in class and going to the tutorial center for help.
This can be applied to pretty much any class that has tempted you to give up. It’s easy to lose confidence in yourself when you’re exhausted and overworked. Give your mind a break and come back to the situation refreshed ready to use that powerful brain of yours. Everyone gets worn out. Heck, I lost the motivation to write this, but when you start something you gotta know that you are capable enough to see it through to the best of your ability and so here we are.


By Christina Olague, FCC Tutor, FCC Student 

Ceci, S.J. and Williams, W, editors,  Why aren’t more women in science? Top researchers debate the evidence. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. http://www.ms.uky.edu/~ma113/s.17/cdweckmathgift.pdf

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