Confidence Through Failure: A Person Example
In The 4-Hour Workweek Timothy Feris proposes the following exercise in confidence: go to a mall or some other public place and ask five members of the opposite sex (or same sex if that’s your thing) for their phone number. You don’t have to get their numbers or call them if you do, you simply have to ask.
If you’re like me, then this is a terrifying suggestion. So I confronted a different fear and rather than talk to girls at the mall, I applied for graduate school.
Applying to grad school was an immense project with many hurdles: the GRE’s, personal statements, lack of common applications between schools, long forms to fill out with rigid rules and intimidating instructions, confusingly laid out websites, obnoxious regulations for foreign students, and a graduate studies secretary with such a thick French-Canadian accent I couldn’t understand her over the phone.
While I felt confident preparing for the GRE General Tests, the GRE Subject Test (which I would be taking in Computer Science) terrified me. The Subject Test covers college-level material. I was applying for PhD computer science programs, but my undergraduate major had been math. The Subject Test, more than anything else, was the reason I’d been putting off graduate school.
The first thing I did was set a date to take the test. With a deadline on the horizon, no matter that it was three months away, I felt the pressure. I bought two books: an overview of the field and a massive tome intended to be a graduate level reference guide. I read the overview cover to cover and studied sections that were unclear to me using online resources. I also created a massive stack of notecards which I carried everywhere and studied at every opportunity.
The test seemed to go well. I made a lot of educated guesses, but felt confident that I was not taking blind stabs in the dark. In the end I scored disappointingly in the 42nd percentile. It was too late to retake the test and I didn’t know what I could have done to score higher except go back and take college courses.
I was reassured by a friend who had just completed the Computer Science grad school application process successfully. He revealed that he had also scored below the 50th percentile and had still been accepted at most schools he applied to. He said that he had simply withheld his scores, even from schools that claimed GRE scores were a required part of the application. I felt unsure about ignoring requirements so blatantly, but nonetheless resolved to stop worrying about the test. There was no going back now.
Four months before the deadlines I began the application process. I am very glad that I started early. Applying to grad school is confusing and intimidating. There are no common applications and each school’s website is different. Keeping detailed notes on my progress on each school’s application helped me stay organized.
I chose to ignore the advice of my friend and sent in my GRE scores to every school that requested them. I wasn’t concerned that withholding the scores would have hurt my application. The application process is not as strict as it makes itself out to be and if a professor wants an applicant, that applicant will almost certainly be admitted (so I'm told), but I would have felt dishonest ignoring the requirements.
Besides the obvious fears: not being accepted, wasting time and money, and having a respectable authority judge me stupid, I also feared that I was missing something. I feared that no matter how many times I read each school’s application guidelines, I would miss a critical piece of information that would ruin the chance of being accepted.
One sizable mistake I made was selecting the wrong checkbox on a particular school’s website. The mistake sent my application to the computational science department rather than the computer science department. They aren’t the same thing.
I spent hours trying to remedy this simple error. In the end I was told to simply start over completely rather than keep trying to get my materials transferred over to the proper department. Unfortunately, the account I had created with the school was now permanently affixed to the wrong department. When I tried to create a new account, I was informed that I already had an account and could not create a duplicate. I contacted an IT professional at the school, but was informed that the university outsourced the software so I had to call the software company directly. That’s when I gave up, more frightened than ever to learn that not all my fears had been unfounded.
I applied to thirteen schools in all (I’m not superstitious), spending over a thousand dollars in application fees. I was accepted at less than half, but two of these were top choice schools: the University of New Mexico and Portland State University. I’m now enrolled at UNM. I suppose all is well that ends well. More than anything, I’m just glad that the process is over.
Lessons learned:
- Set deadlines.
Set them early and set necessary intermediate deadlines. For example: when I had three months to study, I knew that I wanted to read the Overview of Computer Science cover to cover in the first month. That meant X chapters per week, which meant Y pages per day. This prevented me from procrastinating.
"What one man can do, another can do." – The Edge (1997)
This is not a lesson learned but a quote that I repeated to myself frequently to help get through the process. It’s important to remember that no one is superhuman, especially when you’re competing against humans.
- Seek help from those who have gone before you and any other available resources.
Whether the help takes the form of advice, encouragement, or simply soothing words, it is still a blessing to have.
- Use your own judgment to accept, reject, or modify advice you are given, especially if it conflicts with your values.
I ignored my friend’s advice and submitted my below-average GRE scores to every school that requested them. I did not want to wonder if schools would have rejected me if they’d only known my scores. Emotionally, it was much better to be upfront and honest and deal with the consequences.
Besides the moral concerns, it is important to critically evaluate even expert advice. What one man can do, another can do, but that doesn’t mean you can’t do it better.
- Things aren’t as bad as you think.
Many aspects of the application process such as step-by-step instructions on grad app webpages that sprawl across page after page of fine print are designed to intimidate and discourage those who lack commitment. Some colleges are inundated with thousands of applications and I’m not talking about applications to the university as a whole, I’m talking about thousands of applications to individual programs and colleges within the university. It is in a school’s best interest to weed out applicants as early as possible. It is in your best interest not to be intimidated.
Not only did I apply to schools where I did not meet explicitly written requirements, but I was accepted to some of these schools. Here is one example:
Applicants should have programming experience, and at least five one semester courses in Computer Science that are beyond the introductory level are required. The courses should include the equivalent of the following offerings ...
I had taken only four CS courses total, two of which were introductory. I had taken no hardware or software courses. I was still accepted at this school.
- Some things are as bad as you think, but you will survive. ie: Mistakes will be made. There’s no sense fretting over them.
One little mistake on a form wasted hours of my time and in the end I decided not to apply to the school at all. This was precisely the sort of mistake I had feared, the sort of mistake other’s had insisted was unlikely. It was not.
But, if the school had been important enough to me, I would have overcome the obstacles to get my application through.
