NOTHING TO FEAR BUT SELF
As a child, learning came easily to me, to the point that I often didn’t enjoy the classroom environment. Why sit in a room riddled with chalk dust and the mucous of 30 children’s seasonal colds, while working at the pace of the slowest learner in the room, when I could typically teach myself most subjects out of the book, and with none of the social hassles that childhood generally entails? You see, I don’t particularly like most people; they’re mean, illogical creatures plagued by obsessions with mundane, superficial minutiae and are willing to believe absurdities to justify an innate sense of self-absorption (myself included, obviously). It should be evident by now that I need some work on my soft skills. Indeed, the thing that terrifies me most about my decision to return to school (and the implied career goals I hope to achieve in making this choice) is that I will fail in overcoming my greatest obstacle; myself. While there is some debate “both within industry and academia over the ideal set of soft skills,”1 more and more businesses and colleges are commenting on the importance of social skills – and an astonishing lack thereof in technically educated professionals – in career recruiting. 2 There is evidence that many regard such interpersonal skills as more important than the skills required to actually complete the tasks in one’s job description.
3
A person may find that their excellent technical
expertise does them little-to-no good if they are constantly late or absent, prone to bouts of temper, or unable to work on group and team projects in the modern workforce.
1
Keane, C.M. “Technical and Soft Skills Expectations During the Transition from Recent Graduate to New Hire.” The SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System. Fall 2001. Harvard University. 23 Jan. 2009. .
2
Krunk, Penelope. “Stop thinking you'll get by on your high I.Q.” Penelope Krunk’s Brazen Careerist. 20 Nov 2007. 23 Jan. 2009. .
3
"Soft skills." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 16 Jan 2009, 14:35 UTC. 23 Jan 2009 .
Though I didn’t realize the full implications at the time, I was very young when my family discovered that I was unusually emotionally sensitive to the moods and actions of others and fair-minded to the point of having unrealistic expectations of people. I was also prone to extreme anger in reaction to both. Eventually, I would learn I actually suffered from a mild form of bi-polar disorder and acute social-anxiety, both carefully masked by a seemingly extroverted coping persona. Over time and without medical treatment, this inherent brain chemistry has led me to suffer from intense spells of depression (often accompanied by periods of absenteeism in previous work environments), as well as irrational and inappropriately displayed frustration. I describe myself as a person who often has valid complaints based on better-than-average critical thinking skills, but rarely has appropriate reactions to said complaints. In spite of vows to myself to improve this internal flaw, I have already seen external examples of the problems this can cause me here at school. In my firstquarter business administration class, when tasked with a group business plan, I entered into the project with every intention of maintaining optimism and endeavoring to keep communication strong so that potential problems could be easily addressed. When it soon became apparent that one member of the team was not yet experienced enough to handle a research paper, and seemed to be shirking his work to cover for this, I began to feel frustrated. Later on, I learned that the other member of our team had plagiarized every word he submitted from two samples of similar projects. This is when I erupted. While I didn’t handle this as poorly as I might have in the past, I am self-aware enough to acknowledge that I didn’t handle it appropriately either. I was too talkative; venting to more people than necessary, and sought outside help from campus officials (where I was overly emotionally demonstrative) when I should have addressed the issue within the group first. More recently, as you are aware, I transferred to this class from a different English 105 class. There, instead of facing a problem with my peers, I found a teacher who addressed students in a manner I found improper and bordering on harassment. While I had little direct conflict with the instructor myself, I found his
treatment of other students to be wildly unacceptable.
I handled the situation
better this time; privately speaking with the students involved to ask what they were intending to do about the situation. This led to a calm talk with a superior in Academic Affairs, to whom I explained my concerns about both the teacher and my possible overreaction to the situation. While I still consider the latter a possibility, I cannot deny that my demeanor was much more professional in addressing the issue. Additionally, I often catch myself rambling in classes; a nervous reaction to being in crowds, and have noticed that this has had consequences, as every action inherently must. While some have instinctively caught onto the source of my behavior, others have distanced themselves from me out of frustration, for which I certainly can’t blame them. There may be understandable reasons for my actions but I am still responsible for them. My slow progress on addressing my emotional responses is demonstrable proof of this. I would like to say that I have a solution for these problems, but in truth, there are no easy answers. journaling, Lacking options for professional help (i.e. therapy places to vent my frustrations, conducting and/or medication), I am limited to making solo efforts in any way that I can – finding appropriate independent research into coping skills, etc. While it would be inaccurate to say that I’m not still worried, often experiencing great anxiety and panic attacks connected to my circumstances, I am clearly making progress, as shown by the small improvement in my attitude when handling problems so far and my, thus far, perfect attendance. Ultimately, I have no choice but to continue my labors as I am now; overcoming my own psychology is critical to my collegiate success and the goals I seek to attain, therein.