SHAME.
I’m officially finished with my Fall semester of Year 2. Well, I guess I will be, officially, Thursday. A lot has happened since the close of Year 1, Spring 2018, some of which I’ll expand on here. All things considered, this semester has been exceptional. I performed well in Biostatistics (as far as I know, anyway), I got great feedback in my Social Psych seminar, I present my 1st year paper Thursday, I reviewed some work for some classmates, I presented my research in the Williams Lab (and the O&M Lab), I was more vocal when we brought in speakers from other schools, I ran my first experiment, and more. In hindsight, this semester was sublime. It took awhile to get here, though.
Year 1 actually ended on a low note. I remember a meeting in early May, walking into my [then] advisor’s office, where we would spend 90 minutes talking about research for the summer. Or so I thought. What ended up happening instead was there was 10 minutes of small talk and 80 minutes of him digging into me and telling me how I was underperforming in the program. My grades weren’t particularly good (quite the contrary), my writing was meh, my grasp of the material was shaky, my technical skills (particularly critiquing methods in research papers) were nonexistent, and per our recent work together, he was learning I wasn’t the best researcher,either. To make matters even worse, he was high-key rebuking me in that meeting. He said I was being super arrogant by acting like I had everything together and I needed to be humble and ask for more help.
DAAAAAAANG.
He closed the meeting by saying the program was running out of ideas for me, and if my performance didn’t turn around, I was going to get dismissed. As I mentioned in another post, The Furnace of Affliction, my entire 1st year was bend-don’t-break. 1st year was hard for a lot of reasons. I was getting dragged in school. Wasn’t really thrilled about my living situation. I was even less thrilled with the church I was attending, at the time. I just wasn’t feeling my life like that, to be honest. But that meeting, unsurprisingly, was a breaking point. I just couldn’t hold it together. Everything came out. I cried the entire time. He didn’t even have any tissue, so a brother was snot nosed for 80 minutes straight.
I left his office, without feeling very much. When I did [finally] start feeling, there was only one emotion.
SHAME.
I was glad I was going to South America for some time. It probably wasn’t the healthiest response emotionally or psychologically, but I just couldn’t deal. Serendipitously enough, shortly after returning from my vacation in South America, to celebrate surviving Year 1, I get an email notifying me that I’m on academic probation, again. And just like that, I finished Year 1 where I started Year 1: with a notification that I was underperforming and at risk of being dismissed.
SHAME.
I couldn’t even show up to school. So, I didn’t. I was terribly mortified. I didn’t want to see the faculty members in the hallway. I didn’t want to see my classmates. I didn’t want to fraternize in the office or show up to my desk or any of those things. I just stopped coming. Ironically, I didn’t really have any research to work on, either, so it was just an all-around unproductive time. Everything was all wrong. The energy. My confidence and self-esteem. My motivation. Everything was just wrong. I decided to start counseling, too. But then school threw me for another loop.
I was speaking with the chair of the department (one of the sweetest ladies I know), and we basically reached the consensus that the track I was on in the program didn’t really suit me well as a scholar. I spent some time praying about it, spoke with a few faculty members, and looped back to tell her I wanted to change tracks, from economic sociology to organizational behavior (the former is sociologically oriented and the latter is psychologically oriented). After speaking with my then advisor, I had to do some rounds and let some faculty know about my [provisional] transition.
SHAME.
Maybe it was the perfectionist in me, but I wrestled with that. It’s kind of like when you’re in undergrad and you have someone who’s premed, or engineering, and they change majors because their performance is lackluster (not to say there’s anything wrong with that). When you transition because you’re not performing well, it doesn’t really inspire a lot of faith,you know?
Are you changing from mechanical engineering to political science because you really like political science or is it because you’re really, really bad at engineering?
Those situations are fairly different. In my case, where every dime of my education, stipend included, is being paid for by my university, how am I supposed to convince the department this transition is for the better, when there’s nothing really in my performance that merits this will be a good move?
SHAME.
Not only that, but I’m just always used to having a plan. To my detriment sometimes, if I’m being honest with you, I can just assume life will follow a reasonably linear path. Of course, a PhD program is the quintessential illustration of how that isn’t true. Some people spend 4 years in their PhD program and some people spend 9 years. Some people maintain the same research interests over the course of their program,and other students’ interests change substantially over the life of their program. Still, I had a Statement of Purpose. I clearly articulated the type of research I said I planned on doing. And I basically circled back a year later to tell them the exact opposite. It felt… messy. Sloppy. I felt…
SHAME.
It doesn’t help in the entire history of this PhD program, there’s only been one black graduate,
SHAME.
I don’t know if it’s just,
SHAME.
The super obsessive tendencies that,
SHAME.
A lot of academic people end up having anyway,
SHAME.
Or maybe,
SHAME.
Just a negative,
SHAME.
Spiral of thinking,
SHAME.
But, I felt,
SHAME.
I get it. This probably isn’t the most rational. And it’s probably not the healthiest, either (I guess that’s a reoccurring theme?). And it obviously didn’t last forever, but I would be lying if I said it didn’t last a few months, because it did. September came around, I was performing really well on my new track, and I honestly didn’t think about it much anymore. But I was having a conversation recently with a sister in Christ, and I guess I somehow misled her to believe I mastered this whole “shame” thing. She said,
“Wow, I’m so inspired by your story with Year 1. What did you end up doing to help you overcome your shame?”
The shameful answer is, nothing. I didn’t do much of anything. It was a black cloud over my head for several months. Well, maybe I’m not being entirely truthful… I’m being kind of hard on myself. I know for a FACT my shame was certainly a theme in my prayers. And I’m sure I looked at scriptures that were highly relevant, depending on what I felt that day when I got up. But I’m not going to sit here and tell you there was some type of intervention that created a turning point for me, as far as I know.
SHAME.
I felt shame for months. Her question made me think though, because my 5-year program (which could now become 6 years, as a result of my switch) is sure to have other moments that are… how do I say… ‘shame inducing’. So, what am I going to do?
I’ll start with some high-level thoughts, and then maybe I’ll share some of the scriptures that helped me over this past summer, whilst I wrestled with my,
SHAME.
The first is something I think many people would agree with: we have to destigmatize failure. In the academic arena, I don’t know if I would say failure is entirely stigmatized, but I think what happens is because everyone is an overachiever, we just don’t expect to fail nearly as frequently as we end up doing. But a PhD is an advanced degree program. It’s ADVANCED. You’re going to fail. A lot. You just have to roll with the punches. While I don’t necessarily think classmates and colleagues stigmatize failure (rejection rates for most top research journals are generally in the high 80’s or low 90’s), I think there’s a tendency to stigmatize yourself for failing.
SHAME.
I have a classmate that does work on stigma. There are two primary features. First, stigmas are chronic. Indeed, for someone who’s Muslim, they’re not just Muslim on the weekend, or during Ramadan, but they’re a Muslim all the time. To the extent to which Muslims may be viewed negatively, that may pose to be a problem for them. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, stigmas devalue one’s identity. Returning to our previous example, someone who’s Muslim may feel like they’re viewed as less than,because they’re Muslim. Perhaps someone in a wheelchair would echo similar sentiments. Perhaps someone with HIV would chime in with similar thoughts. While these are quite different from my academically oriented example, there is a feeling that failure devalues our identity and we may be penalized in interactions as a result of our failure(s). Interestingly, it doesn’t have to be that way.
Case and point, Silicon Valley.
Many books have been written by practitioners on the topic of high-growth startups. One of the themes appears to be that, as a serial entrepreneur (someone who has made a career launching, and perhaps selling, several different businesses), it’s not uncommon to have several failures before a success. Not only that, but you end up working for several businesses that fail, too. I’m sure you can imagine what their resume looks like, if an interviewer is going over it.
SHAME.
“Why did you leave Company X?”
“Oh, it failed.”
“Oh. And from there, you went to Company Y.”
“Yeah, I was there 2 years, and then it went under.”
“Oh, I see.”
SHAME.
And the conversation just tends to proceed in that way. It’s hard to get around. In Silicon Valley, many of the firms are high growth. And you know how these things go: ventures with high reward tend to be high risk, too. But in Silicon Valley, failure doesn’t seem to be viewed in the same lens that the rest of the private sector tends to use.
If I were to take this and turn it into a career related lesson, perhaps especially for those in advanced degree programs, I’d say the F’s are part of the process. Take your L’s, man. Take them with pride. Like a badge of honor. It comes with the territory. Celebrate every single success, because you’ll have some stretches where it looks like you’re only experiencing failure. It be like that sometimes. But perhaps more importantly, there’s nothing wrong with failure. It’s an important part of the process. It’s certainly not the most thrilling part of the process, but I would say it’s a necessary ingredient for anything worthwhile, including but not limited to completing an advanced degree program or entering a profession with many gate-keeping measures (like law, medicine, academia, etc.).
Beyond that though, it’s worth considering how the Bible offers guidance to help us with,
SHAME.
I could share a lot of different passages, but my posts have been trending on the longer side as of late, so I’ll try and keep this one tight. Shame is an attitude and a mindset. There are occasions where we have people shaming us, but (at least in my experience) what’s far more common is that we’re shaming ourselves. We’re ashamed about our own behavior. I’ll focus,then, on overcoming that.
I like Romans 8, particularly verse 37 (although feel free to read from verse 18). The Bible says we are more than conquerors, through him who loves us. You know, when I’m feeling,
SHAME.
I don’t feel like much of a conqueror. Not surprisingly, it cripples me, and I’m rendered ineffective. I’m not reading for school, I’m not developing research ideas, I’m not critiquing and reviewing papers, or wrestling with theoretical or empirical puzzles. I’m not the best version of myself. I’m far, far below capacity. And as you would imagine, in an ADVANCED degree program, you can’t afford to operate below capacity, much less significantly below. You’re just not going to make it. I think one of the things I need to learn, and that we need to learn, is how to conquer those feelings of
SHAME.
If I’m a conqueror, what is shame? When I think about all of the victories the Bible illustrates (The Jews victory over Pharaoh and Egypt, Gideon’s victory over the Midianites, David’s victory over Goliath, Jesus’ victory over death), certainly shame can be bested.
Speaking of conquest, I’ll share a similar passage from Joshua 1, verse 9. As God commissions Joshua to assume leadership following the death of Moses, he commands him(several times), “Be strong and courageous.”
When I think of my own grapple with,
SHAME.
It’s because of a moment where I wasn’t feeling effective. After all, if you spent 2 of your first 3 semesters of your PhD program on academic probation, you probably wouldn’t be feeling “effective” either. That’s consistent with the devalued identity argument we discussed when we mentioned stigma. While what Joshua was feeling may have been closer to anxiety, uncertainty, or other things along those lines, that call to BE strong reminds me that in spite of what I may feel, I can still DECIDE to be strong.
Now, here me out. I believe you need to take time to process things emotionally, maintain a good mental space, etc. True, there have definitely been moments in all this where I probably haven’t done the best job about maintaining a positive head space. But I do think the Bible reminds me that strong people aren’t born. We choose to be strong. And it’s certainly not a result of our own merit, but because of the Spirit of God, which allows for us to be strong, in spite of what we think and feel. Including,
SHAME.
Amen.
So, this is for the recent college graduate who just found out they’re getting laid off from the job they’ve had for less than a year.
SHAME.
This is for the law student who just found out they’re the only student in their graduating class who didn’t pass the bar.
SHAME.
This is for the Christian guy who had sex with that girl on Saturday night and is too embarrassed to go back to church the next day.
SHAME.
This is for all of us, trying to overcome our,
SHAME.
Nnamdi
Congrats on your transition!