Losing like a champ, who is in fact actually losing
October 6, 2016 2:17 PM   Subscribe

Hi, I just switched fields / areas of study and I'm getting used to not getting by on my fancy words and good looks anymore. Please help me not hate myself?

I used to be a talented person working in a niche field. Let's say it was poetry. In this analogy, I had been writing poetry since I was 14 years old, I really liked poetry, I applied to college to study poetry. Despite my slacker high school years (good grades, but didn't do anything I didn't have to, except poetry) I wrote good essays and went to a great college. I wrote papers about poetry, got A's, profs asked me to come to office hours to talk about grad school. TAs said, hey, you're ready for grad school, if you want to go. I won a poetry prize. Graduated. Stopped writing poetry, realized I didn't love it as much as I thought I did, also realized I didn't want to go to grad school under the current bleak conditions, and wanted to make more money so I could get the tuition debt monkey off my back.

So I switched fields to computer science, which I like a lot (I studied it a bit as an undergrad as well). I've done OK for myself; I'm in a combined B.S./M.S. program, I have a good GPA (3.7+), I worked on a research project last quarter (as an underling, but got my foot in the door). There's a lot more money floating around in STEM, and a lot of "diversity" opportunities for women and minorities. I won two diversity travel grants last year to attend conferences. I like what I do pretty well, though I have impostor syndrome at times. But oh god, all the grants I haven't won! So many! And interview season is coming up, and I feel woefully incompetent. I've never faced so much rejection in my life. Plus, I'm starting later than most people around me, so I feel very immature in the field (which I am, but it's overwhelming at times).

I applied for a slew of travel/ticket grants for the Grace Hopper conference (coming up this fall), and I was rejected for every. single. one of them, except the very last I applied for, which felt like a Hail Mary. Obviously I'm very grateful to have won any travel grant at all, but it's very dispiriting compared to the old days, where I had a pretty good chance of winning any subject-related grant I put my mind to. I know I sound like a spoiled brat, but I keep thinking maybe I'm just really quite dumb, if I can't win a travel grant to a (different) conference where my own research (project I worked on, not my sole research) is being presented, which is what just happened to me this morning.

I had a technical phone screen earlier this week and I'm convinced I have failed it; and if I did, I know it's just one job, but it feels so crushing to be rejected so much! Something I am totally unused to, both because I was more talented in my old field, and because I probably didn't put myself out there as much, to be honest (there aren't as many opportunities for awards and grants in "poetry," though when I did apply, I had a pretty good success rate).

How do I go from applying for an award here and there, and winning most of the time, to applying for boatloads of awards/jobs/grants, and only getting a couple here and there? Should I give up trying to be a STEM person? Am I just... not that? Do I need more time and experience? Do I need to "give back" more? Basically, how do I just stop hating myself every time I get a rejection, and feel like a normal smart-but-not-genius person?

I thought it was good that I stopped comparing myself to actual geniuses; but now I'm comparing myself to people who are just really really good at getting jobs and grants, and I feel like I really suck compared to them. I know I'm not totally stupid; I get good grades, and I'm not stumped in interviews. But I still feel pretty unhappy about how different things are-- help?

(Just to say, I do actually like this field, I enjoy the work I do, I'm just really anxious about not getting a good job placement during student recruitment season, and also feeling like a total reject in general.)
posted by anonymous to Work & Money (18 answers total) 9 users marked this as a favorite
 
Most people who work in a given field don't win any awards; if that weren't the case, the awards would not be a great way to judge your own ability. Lots of people fail most of their interviews. Winning some awards and doing very well in a program that you're starting on late (and that has not been your primary fieldĀ all your life) puts you in rare company.

More than that, though, your ultimate worth is not determined by how good you are at something, or how smart you are. And even if it were, it's not determined by how good you are at one particular field; your success in "poetry" isn't obliterated from your permanent record.
posted by Polycarp at 2:24 PM on October 6, 2016 [6 favorites]


Study more.

Technical interviews are basically a test to see how hard you have studied. I think the process most companies use is incredibly stupid, but it is a very well-known process, and one that you can prepare for. Do practice questions. Buy "Cracking the Coding Interview" and do the exercises. See if mock interviews are offered by your department or career services. Practice, practice, practice. If you feel like an impostor, practice until you feel like less of one.

I can't speak as much to grants, but I suspect there's a similar process for those. You have to WORK. You seem quite qualified to do great things in CS, but even having a strong inclination doesn't mean you don't need to work for it. It's a challenging disciple that lends itself to focused study, remembering the rules and algorithms, paying attention to details, and exposing yourself to new ideas.

Once you have studied enough, much more I think than you have studied so far (this is not something that one just learns in a year or two, expect it to take you a good... 8 or so more years), you will start to feel that same sense of mastery that you feel with "poetry." You are very early in the field. You have a long period of feeling like you don't get it ahead of you, because you don't. That's ok. You WILL get there, I have no doubt, if you can focus, but you can't start out as the best, first you have to be a novice.

Most people in tech do not have accolades, fancy degrees, grants, awards, scholarships. The biggest advantage they have over you is time. Do you have the willingness to put in the time?
posted by ch1x0r at 2:35 PM on October 6, 2016 [9 favorites]


The fact that you weren't rejected for a grant for the conference is maybe more how I'd think about it? You also don't know you failed that interview. Stop anticipating failure. It's making you miserable.
posted by listen, lady at 3:21 PM on October 6, 2016 [1 favorite]


Woman in comp sci here.

3.7+ GPA is great! It means you're doing well in your program.

And unfortunately, the impostor syndrome is quite common in tech. I didn't have it in university, but my first job is at a very competitive (large) company. I definitely experienced the "small fish, big pond". Previous to this job, most things came easily to me, but at this job, *everybody* is super smart and I was the newbie who didn't know anything. Eventually, you'll get better and gain more confidence. It also helps if you reach out and connect with other women (which it sounds like you're doing by going to Grace Hopper).

Another thing to keep in mind is that you have just started in the field (and that's okay). But a lot of people have been interested in the field since 14 or even 8 and have tinkered on computers and been programming/making webpages/hacking hexidecimals/etc. So while they're in the same class and year as you, they are actually a lot more familiar and experienced with interacting with computers in a manipulative way.

Also, interviewing is a skill. You just have to prep for it and do it a lot in order to get better at it. In my first year applying to internships, I got rejected for almost every single one of them because I was not adequately prepared. Eventually I got an internship from a very small company that was not even an affiliate with my department (but had a very good experience). The next year, I had a much easier getting an internship. So hang in there!

(I do interviews, and frequently, candidates are very, very bad at predicting whether they did well during an interview or not. Without knowing the specifics of your interview--which you probably can't share because of an NDA--there's no way to tell how well you did based on your feelings.)
posted by ethidda at 3:24 PM on October 6, 2016 [1 favorite]


Another woman in a comp sci field. Been in this industry for 20 years now (oiy...). I like to think I've been pretty successful in this area. I'm a very solid developer and run a very large team of developers working on websites seen by millions.

I've never won a grant in my life. Nor was my GPA even close to that high. And the hiring process is, frankly, kinda broken. There are so, so many factors our of your control that if you will drive yourself bonkers if you place any meaningful value of your self worth on what interviews go well and which don't. Do you best, then move on. Something will eventually click, but do not worry about the ones that don't.

More advice - go out and code. Have a desire to learn. Build things you want to build. Your first attempt will suck (they all do), so build them again. Heck, build it a third time - use a different language or framework if you want, but keep coding, and keep learning. Put it on github, show it off to the world. Find some open source project and contribute. Practice, practice practice. Love & practice the craft, and you'll get good at it. Be able to speak passionately about the things you've worked on, and the things you want to learn. This is all so much more important than the difference between a 3 and a 3.7 GPA, or any random conference attendance.

Good luck!
posted by cgg at 3:52 PM on October 6, 2016 [11 favorites]


Tech interviews are notoriously awful, even for people who amazingly good at what they do. They're almost an entire skill you have to learn that's nearly totally unrelated to whatever you actually end up doing.

Speaking personally, one thing I think that people who have trouble with rejection get caught up in is holding themselves to a nearly-unattainable standard. Thinking back over an interview that didn't go well, picking apart every little thing that was off, dwelling endlessly on what you might have done differently to get a better outcome. Others seem to be able to make excuses for themselves -- and I don't mean that in a bad way at all. As a perfectionist, at times I feel like I have an almost adversarial relationship with myself, and that's not helpful. So in combating this, one thing I have found helpful is almost to think of myself as a cherished friend and try to make the same allowances for myself that I might for a friend.

So: "ZeroDivides totally bombed that interview, but her father is really sick and she's had a lot on her mind." "ZeroDivides was really awkward at that meeting but I know she's been putting in lots of overtime lately, she is probably really tired." I guess, it seems like resilient people are able to forgive themselves for not being perfect, in a way that people who are perfectionists, or are used to being exceptional aren't always able to.

Lastly, like everything else, accepting rejection gracefully takes a lot of practice. It's almost a skill you have to develop just like lots of other job related skills, especially in STEM.
posted by ZeroDivides at 4:14 PM on October 6, 2016 [3 favorites]


+1 woman here in comp sci. No awards or grants ever in my life, my GPA was lower than yours.

I totally feel you on that phone screen; I went through that myself! I was stammering and blabbing and I was convinced that I blew it. But surprise! I got called in for more interviewing, and am now working for the company. So you never know! (It also took me like two months of searching to land the job.)

Please don't get disheartened! CS is a VERY competitive field nowadays, for everyone in the field. cgg gave great advice about practicing and contributing. Also, do you have friends in your field? Reach out to them. Network network network. You'll find that plenty of bright people, even the ones that have jobs, have/had the same "imposter" feeling, that they've been rejected numerous times for grants and job offers, that they felt like total idiots... You're not alone, believe me.

And yes... technical interviews are shitty. I know, because I've been on the interviewer side. They're just, like, those dumb SAT tests you take in high school that ultimately means nothing, but they've gotta be done...
posted by curagea at 4:31 PM on October 6, 2016


The world is competitive enough that you can't place your self-worth in the hands of external forces like grants and reviewers and interviewers. You have to cultivate an internal sense of awesomeness and be able to turn to it when the world tells you you aren't awesome enough. Building some bounce and resilience into your sense of self is the only way to keep going, I've found. I've been far less successful in winning grants and stuff than you have - not because I'm bad at what I do, but because these sorts of things are a finite resource and I'm surrounded by other wildly intelligent people. I believe I'm good at what I do, and I think it's worth doing regardless of external validation. That sort of resilience makes it much easier to read reviewer comments, get a rejection, have some sort of negative interaction, and then take a breath, pull the useful bits out of it, and move on to improve things for the next submission.
posted by ChuraChura at 4:54 PM on October 6, 2016 [1 favorite]


If I have the numbers right, you did "poetry" for at least 7 years intensively. How long have you done comp sci? Two, three? Have you been spending as much spare time on it as you did on the poetry? I'd argue that it's the hours put in rather than any inherent talent, layered with the fact that the timing is such that the kids currently getting the scholarships are the ones who were breathing code at 14. Getting a scholarship is unusual, and not getting one in no way dooms your future. You started out behind. You're catching up. It's just a time game.

I was a kid who actually was in poetry competitions and then went into engineering. I started out behind. My learning style and pattern recognition were different than most of my peers and profs, and my grades were unimpressive. I have a fulfilling career with a science focus that I really enjoy. The real thing that helped me get out of my head was finding a hobby that I could be bad at and kind of revel in being bad at it, put all that energy into something that didn't define me to the extent that my academics did at the time.
posted by tchemgrrl at 5:50 PM on October 6, 2016 [1 favorite]


You might find some of the answers from this previous "Am I not cut out for computer science?" question helpful.

My tl;dr: the field is challenging, some experience with failure is a normal part of participating, there is always someone better, interviewing sometimes sucks no matter what you bring to it, remembering your intrinsic motivation is key.
posted by wildblueyonder at 6:13 PM on October 6, 2016


Oh, wow.

Well, consider that there are most likely a lot more people applying for the awards/scholarships, if the comp sci/poetry analogy holds up.

Look, I have a PhD in neuroscience. I graduated in 2001 and then spent 9 years as a post-doc. (I don't do research science any more.) Throughout grad school and post-doc I got exactly one award. I got two grants. It's competitive. I was a perfectly fine scientist: I published, I went to meetings, I collaborated with people, I made actual legit discoveries. But you know, that made me average. I was surrounded by awesome people. And that was fine. I had a niche. But it's just something you will probably have to resign yourself to. You can be great without being the best.
posted by gaspode at 6:22 PM on October 6, 2016 [4 favorites]


Heh, all my high school English teachers were horrified when I told them I was going to school for CS because they had been so dead sure I was going to be a poet. As if that's even a job, right?

Programming interviews are brutal, full stop. Even the brightest people I know study hard for them. I failed some interviews I really, really wanted to pass when I was about where you are in my career and it destroyed my confidence for a fair few years. I wish I could go back in time and shake my past self. Rejection is not the end of the world. It doesn't mean you don't belong. It means you need to study harder and go back out there and try again.
posted by the marble index at 10:21 PM on October 6, 2016 [2 favorites]


You are the confluence of IT and academia, two highly competitive fields. You just got there and are competing with people who have been been in this arena for a much longer time. And you think you should win the honors? Not realistic.

BTW, in real life, programming is a team activity. Individual honors are rare.
posted by SemiSalt at 5:58 AM on October 7, 2016 [1 favorite]


my company is a membership organization for, let's say, botanists. we offer a student botanist grant that covers registration for our annual botany convention. it is funded completely by earmarked donations, so there isn't much. the "winners" are first come first served. there's nothing merit based about it. just a thought.
posted by misanthropicsarah at 12:11 PM on October 7, 2016


Wow, I relate a lot to this question. First, some background on myself: I'm a woman in CS, and I also thought I'd do art/writing in high school. Then I went to a top college to do computer science, interned at a well-known tech company, went into CS research my junior year, won a bunch of awards and fellowships my senior year, and am now at a top PhD program for CS. (I also went to Grace Hopper after my sophomore year.)

Lots of people above have covered that you shouldn't be so hard on yourself, and you're competing against others with lots of experience. That's true, but you sound very ambitious and I personally wouldn't be satisfied by those answers. I think you can excel in the way that you want to (esp. since you have a 3.7 GPA), and I want to show you how to do it.

My question is: are you going more for academia (CS research) or industry (software engineering)? The standards and goals are quite different between the two. In industry, awards and grants are nonexistent and matter very little. What's impressive there is either working at a prestigious company, starting or maintaining widely-used open source projects (e.g. Linux, node.js), being something like a Staff Engineer at Google, or giving talks at industrial conferences (e.g. defcon, Pycon, or Strange Loop). In academia, awards and grants matter a lot (though people also regularly work at top tech companies, e.g. Facebook Research). People strive to get publications at top conferences, research awards, "best paper" at conferences, travel grants to conferences, and funding for their research. Standards and goals also vary between subfields of industry and academia (e.g. web development vs. security; programming languages vs. theory) and here I think individual advice could help you a lot.

One thing that's very important to realize is that accolades are cumulative and the rate of getting them is nonlinear. The more you win, the more people bet that you'll keep winning. It sounds like you've gotten your first few grants already--you've got your foot in the door!

Another thing is that GPA doesn't matter that much. In industry, for internships, people are impressed by cool projects you've started on your own and put on your site. (Check out Hacker News.) In academia, people are impressed by cool papers you've published.

Also, talk to other women in CS that you admire, e.g. at your school or at Grace Hopper, who've worked at places you want to work or gotten grants/awards that you want to get.

General advice: consider applying to Recurse Center, which is a generally wonderful place for curious people who like programming. There are lots of women and minorities, and lots of people from diverse backgrounds (including art). It's a "writers' retreat for programmers," and they have grants.

Please reach out to me! MeMail is great. I'd be very happy to give you individual advice depending on your goals in industry or academia.
posted by glass origami robot at 4:56 PM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]


You may also want to consider applying to the Google Anita Borg Scholarship, NCWIT Aspirations in Computing Award, Square Code Camp, and the Palantir Women in Technology Scholarship. I'm sure your local women in CS org will know more of these opportunities.

By the way, I'm mentioning a lot of markers of success but not actually talking about long-term goals that will yield these along the way. (e.g. if you keep applying to stuff without doing impressive things, it won't help.) I could probably be more helpful if I knew more about your interests in CS/software engineering.
posted by glass origami robot at 5:04 PM on October 11, 2016


Lastly, re: being okay with rejection: it's hard! And especially hard to see others succeed at something you failed at. But something that helped me become okay with rejection was realizing that one almost never sees when successful people fail, c.f. this CV of failures and my friend's list of CS research rejections.
posted by glass origami robot at 5:36 PM on October 11, 2016


I applied for a slew of travel/ticket grants for the Grace Hopper conference (coming up this fall), and I was rejected for every. single. one of them, except the very last I applied for, which felt like a Hail Mary. Obviously I'm very grateful to have won any travel grant at all, but it's very dispiriting compared to the old days, where I had a pretty good chance of winning any subject-related grant I put my mind to. I know I sound like a spoiled brat, but I keep thinking maybe I'm just really quite dumb, if I can't win a travel grant to a (different) conference where my own research (project I worked on, not my sole research) is being presented, which is what just happened to me this morning.

So like, generally speaking, because so much money is swimming around in STEM, travel grants are typically used to promote diversity attendees. When presenting grant funded research for an academic conference, you're expected to fund the travel from your team's grants and fellowships. From here on out, the game isn't writing essays for a prize of travel money to attend the conference, the game is presenting research and the prize is best paper / poster / presentation awards.

Similarly, industry conferences expect employers to pay your way. They'll have discounts for students and other people who don't have a training budget. But if you're presenting, your reward is free admission. Which means the presentations lean heavily towards sales pitches for consultancies, Saas offerings, and recruiters.

I had a technical phone screen earlier this week and I'm convinced I have failed it; and if I did, I know it's just one job, but it feels so crushing to be rejected so much!

When filling a position, we try to have two candidates we'd hire. Candidate A we prefer most, and Candidate B we'd make an offer to if Candidate A declines. To figure out how many applicants we need to get that result, we basically work backwards through the hiring process and expect to filter out half of the candidates at every stage. Which means if the pipeline is application | resume screen | recruiter phone screen | tech phone screen | in person interview | offer, you need to be best out of 32 get an offer on your first try. (And if you want competing offers, you need to be best on 64!) Fortunately, different companies have different niches, and there's plenty of broken interview processes. You just need to play the numbers game. And you better with practice, if you pay attention.
posted by pwnguin at 12:25 AM on October 13, 2016


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