Be more confident in my abilities?

[j814wong]

Holding me back, academically, is my lack of confidence in my abilities which prevents me from taking academic risks and those who've seen my previous posts will understand this.

How can I improve my confidence in my abilities and prevent lack of confidence from causing lower performance than I would of gotten if I were more confident?

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[TangoDown]

I haven't read any of your threads, but I'm assuming you're in high school as this was posted on hSDN, so I'll leave you some advice, being someone who came into college not extremely confident about my own abilities but slowly reformed my study habits and now am doing extremely well:

You've got to approach the "stepping over" of that line you've drawn for yourself at a measured pace. Start by taking steps at reforming your study habits if you're not doing as well. Try to take notes in class and then review those notes after class. Start utilizing a student planner and keep on top of your assignments, checking them off.

If you're not confident in your abilities to succeed in specific college courses like the pre-med prereqs, don't think of them as "the prerequisites" as much as "this course." Start with Chem, and see how it goes. If you want, if your university offers the remedial course, take that and apply yourself. Do well, and you will be guaranteed to be thoroughly prepared for General Chem.

tl;dr start taking little steps to rewire your thought process as to yourself, like cognitive behavioral therapy. As you make little victories, little by little, you'll start to grow more confident.

Best of luck. Feel free to PM me if you need any more help.

 

[Chadori]

Holding me back, academically, is my lack of confidence in my abilities which prevents me from taking academic risks and those who've seen my previous posts will understand this.

How can I improve my confidence in my abilities and prevent lack of confidence from causing lower performance than I would of gotten if I were more confident?

I too have a similar problem. I get discouraged sometimes when studying. I'm at a point in my academic career where I have the opportunity to possibly get into the University of Texas at Austin because of my GPA. My dilemma is that if I do get in, I may not be able to afford living expenses. Thinking about this causes me to lose motivation because I fear that I'll just end up going to University of Houston which is local to me.

My advice to you is to drop the fear. Whether you are at the college level or you are about to graduate high school, think of it like this; if you have made it this far, then you must be doing something right. I know many people that have dropped out during high school and college and since I'm assuming you are still attending school, that means you have confidence lying somewhere.

When you realize that you have nothing to lose, and that it is okay to be wrong, that's when you will take more academic risks. It is fine to not know everything there is to know at first. Continue to work hard and apply yourself in your studies. If the teacher asks the class a question, try your best to answer it and if you happen to be wrong, ask the teacher to explain why the correct answer is correct. Come up with questions to ask the teacher during his/her conference hours.

Continue the desire to improve upon yourself. Remember as long as you are learning, you will end up where you need to be. Develop more internal motivation.

 

[Medstart108]

Holding me back, academically, is my lack of confidence in my abilities which prevents me from taking academic risks and those who've seen my previous posts will understand this.

How can I improve my confidence in my abilities and prevent lack of confidence from causing lower performance than I would of gotten if I were more confident?

Be a little bit more arrogant. Remind yourself you are the best and you will gain confidence.

 

[j814wong]

Thanks for the advice everyone.

Tangodown, I've started testing out new study methods. Namely, take handwritten notes in class then type them up at home while reviewing and optimising the content.

What do medical schools think of remedial courses?

 

[TangoDown]

Thanks for the advice everyone.

Tangodown, I've started testing out new study methods. Namely, take handwritten notes in class then type them up at home while reviewing and optimising the content.

What do medical schools think of remedial courses?

They don't care, as long as they will propel you to do well in the general courses. You obviously don't want to do badly in the remedial courses though, as they'll drag your GPA down and you won't have an adequate grasp of the material to do well in the prerequisites. So put in work. They don't have to come naturally easily to you, because everything is a progression. Algebra II can be hard to someone taking it for the first time, but talk to the same guy who's in Differential Equations and Algebra II material will be a piece of cake. It's all about developing yourself cognitively and in terms of a skill set.

A good system of note taking is active note taking, where you only put down the relevant information. You can also do Cornell notes, as they allow you to easily study via question/answer method (so you're testing yourself).

Make sure you're listening while writing and actively thinking about what you write. I've heard that reviewing the material right after the class (if you can) boosts retention, but it's not required to do well.

Good luck, man. I think you'll do just fine. Just take small, consistent steps and soon you'll see that you can do a lot better than you think. There's a psychological property out there that states that people that tend to consider themselves better than their peer tend to overestimate their actual intellect/abilities, whereas people that tend to consider themselves not to be as intelligent or skilled may be underestimating their intellect and skills.

EDIT: This is what I'm talking about: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect

 

[j814wong]

They don't care, as long as they will propel you to do well in the general courses. You obviously don't want to do badly in the remedial courses though, as they'll drag your GPA down and you won't have an adequate grasp of the material to do well in the prerequisites. So put in work. They don't have to come naturally easily to you, because everything is a progression. Algebra II can be hard to someone taking it for the first time, but talk to the same guy who's in Differential Equations and Algebra II material will be a piece of cake. It's all about developing yourself cognitively and in terms of a skill set.

A good system of note taking is active note taking, where you only put down the relevant information. You can also do Cornell notes, as they allow you to easily study via question/answer method (so you're testing yourself).

Make sure you're listening while writing and actively thinking about what you write. I've heard that reviewing the material right after the class (if you can) boosts retention, but it's not required to do well.

Good luck, man. I think you'll do just fine. Just take small, consistent steps and soon you'll see that you can do a lot better than you think. There's a psychological property out there that states that people that tend to consider themselves better than their peer tend to overestimate their actual intellect/abilities, whereas people that tend to consider themselves not to be as intelligent or skilled may be underestimating their intellect and skills.

EDIT: This is what I'm talking about: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect

Thanks a lot for the encouragement and tips. 🙂