Don't forget to be awesome: Self confidence tricks for those in geeky fields

[terriko]

I took on one of the Ask A Geek Feminist questions: "How do you keep up your inner reserves of self-confidence?"

And that resulted in this post on Self Confidence Tricks.

The short version is:

1. Remember that you're not alone
2. Cultivate your shield of arrogance
3. Find your cheerleading squad
4. Celebrate your accomplishments
5. Don’t forget to be awesome

And as usual, you can read the much longer post here: Self Confidence Tricks @ GeekFeminism.org.

Thanks especially to miko, who not only regularly reminds me to be awesome, but also provided that last tip. She's always an inspiration of awesomeness both in what she does and how she encourages others.

PS - Have we told you about our latest project? We're so darned cool. Watch for filming coming soon!

Comments

Confidence

[(Anonymous)]

It's very much a cultural thing to which degree it's expected to come off as super-confident. Americans who apply for jobs over here, for example, tend to overdo it a lot, and come off as ridicolous rather than confident. (same is true, to a lesser degree, for germans)

For me, it was stressful, I disliked it in germany, and doubt I'd like working in USA. I realize people are different, but for me personally, it's a lot more pleasant to work in an environment where it's not merely accepted, but indeed -expected- that you're insecure and uncertain now and then. And being so, doesn't imply that one ain't, infact, entirely awesome.

Re: Confidence

[terriko]

That does sound like a more relaxing environment!

I find that academic science, as a culture, really does require a bit more confidence than general life. It is possible that this is in part due to my field, which has many practitioners in the US. But I think it's just a science thing: peer review favours clearly stated results where the reviewers seem confident (and have the science to back them up). If you don't seem confident in your results, the question is why didn't you do more experiments until you could be confident?

And I guess that makes sense in the context of publishing results. I'm more off-put by the horrible language used than the requirement that one be confident in the science you do. :)

Re: Confidence

[https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawkWJhJc9gBQQS_Q8NoGPXsfBUZz0A7S8gQ]

It's not -nessecarily- more relaxing, it's just a different culture, and whether an individual find it preferable or not to have a low power-distance, is largely a matter of taste. I do think there's a tendency for well-educated people to prefer low-hierarchy, flat-structure, low-formality, no dress-code etc.

Which is a paradox, really, because those sorts of cultures tend to also create less of a wage-differential. The nice thing is, the CEO of my company earns only 20% more than I do, but on the flipside the wage-differential between my job and flipping burgers is less than a factor of 2. (it'd be a much larger factor in the US)

It's true that in order for a academic paper to be potentially interesting, it has to at the very least make a potentially interesting claim. (and then preferably, back the claim up with evidence) But I don't think that means you have to be confident -generally-. You just need to be confident about describing what you did, and what happened.

I actually think applying for grants can be harder, you need to, afterall, somehow come across in a way that makes it clear -your- proposal should get the grant, i.e. your proposal is a good one. Which takes some confidence, you do need to be able to believe it yourself, for starters.