It’s May Day today, which means that candy is blooming around campus and the sidewalk chalk is a little friskier than usual. The holiday itself has roots in the Celtic celebration of Beltane, which honors the point half way between the spring equinox and the summer solstice and is associated with optimism, growth, and new beginnings.
Hooray, hooray! It’s the 1st of May!
Well, now that we’ve plowed our way through that nice little introduction I’d like to subtly transition into my own thoughts on growth and new beginnings. It’s been about 5 months since I got back from my study abroad program with SEA Semester and I’m finally able to reflect on it. The program took me and a handful of other students from Barcelona to the Canary Islands on a tall ship, where along the way we learned how to sail, to be a leader at sea, to conduct oceanographic research, and to shower during rough waters without cracking our skulls open.
Clearly working hard.
I am a very different person from who I was when I first set foot on the deck of the SSV Corwith Cramer, partly because that person 1) had not yet thrown up into the ocean, 2) couldn’t tie bows on birthday presents yet alone tie a bowline knot, and 3) was really really scared of being wrong.
I’m sure we can all agree that being wrong sucks. It can be embarrassing, it can hurt your self esteem, it can shake the confidence you have in your abilities and in yourself. I was the person who didn’t want to answer a question in class in case it wasn’t the right one, who got defensive about criticism even if I recognized my own mistake, and who generally just took being wrong very personally. Here’s a tip: don’t do that. It’s not good for you.
My time abroad taught me that it’s okay if you have no idea what’s going on. That if you speak up and ask questions, you’ll know for the next time instead of having to pretend. That not knowing something or saying the wrong answer doesn’t make you stupid or inept or worth any less than others around you. It’s ridiculously hard to separate yourself from this, I know, and it’s something that I’m still working on. But in my life as a student and as a scientist – and in everyone’s lives as human beings – it’s just such a huge weight off the shoulders to accept being wrong and learn from it.
So, I guess a goal for myself to keep up with and a piece of advice to others is to learn to be okay with mistakes. Ask your professor about that difficult concept one more time even if you think the rest of the class understands, and ask your friend how to work the knobs on their shower before you get in and try to wing it. It’ll work out better in the long run.