I have a pet peeve. It's something that seems small, but it has the potential to do an untold amount of damage. It goes something like this:
Freshman year, I took general chemistry.
Having gone to a grossly underfunded high school that only offered one chemistry class (which was mostly aimed to satisfy the state requirements for high school graduation, and not to foster budding young chemists), I fell behind almost immediately.
I was working on our first homework assignment (unit conversions, to my dismay), and I was hopelessly confused, so I asked one of my classmates for help. I figured what I needed help on was pretty minor, so asking for a classmate's help would be no problem. I was wrong.
When I asked him to explain the homework to me, he shrugged and said, "It's not like it's hard." And that tiny phrase made me want to give up completely. I know that he wasn't trying to make me feel bad, but he inadvertently made me feel completely stupid.
What's worse, is that his making me feel that way prevented me from asking for help on future assignments, because I didn't want other students, or the professor, to think that I was as stupid as I felt. In a class that was largely foreign to me, I felt completely alone.
I overhear students doing this same thing across campus all the time, and I think it's because many of us have no idea what damage this can do to our fellow students because I don't think any of us ever really mean to put each other down. College is hard, and in order to survive, we need to empower our friends and classmates. And doing so actually really simple.
I think the solution to the problem starts with how we look at ourselves. The fact of the matter is that if you're in college, you're not stupid.
You're not. You got this far.
And honestly, there aren't a whole lot of things out there in life that are more demanding than college. You can handle this.
After reminding ourselves (every single day if we have to) that we are not stupid, we need to project that idea out on everyone around us. Don't let your friends call themselves stupid. It doesn't matter if they're failing calculus, they aren't stupid. If you or your friends are struggling with staying on top of things, it's OK to ask for help.
Needing a tutor or a counselor doesn't make you stupid, it means you're smart enough to know when you need help.
If you're good at something, and the person next to you is really struggling with that thing, don't patronize them by saying how easy it is, because it might only come easily to you.
And that's OK, but it's important to remember how what you say can make other people feel, even if putting someone down was never your intention. You don't have to offer to help anyone if you don't want to, but you should always encourage your classmates to ask for help, and especially not to give up.
When so many of us are struggling to keep it together in college, we all need to be aware of the impact we make on everyone around us.
