Friday, January 18, 2013

Renaissance Woman

          In high school, I met with a college admissions counselor, who asked me about my extracurricular activities and academic performance. For sports, I had done ballet and track and cross country. I had won an art competition, performed in the school musical, and played guitar for the jazz band. I excelled at history and I loved science. I worked in a research lab, where I helped screen for mutations affecting mesodermal development in worms.
          “So you’re a Renaissance woman” he said, looking pleased. “College admissions officers love that.”
          I always assumed that growing up meant pruning away my interests to concentrate on a single discipline. That is the logical route to take; we live in an era of specialization. Being a jack-of-all-trades, or a student of all disciplines, is confusing and chaotic.
          I have been searching for that one single thing that I am good at; I still don’t know the answer. None of my ventures have seemed to be quite the right fit for me. Lately, it has occurred to me that I need to play to my actual strengths, rather than the strengths I wish I had, or the strengths that I think I could develop.
          My strength, as I see it, is that I am interested in everything. This doesn’t seem much like strength – these past years, I have often thought of it as weakness. The flipside of being interested in everything is that you never really master one thing. My concentration – and my ability to focus – is hampered because I am always going off on tangents. As they say – “Jack of all trades, master of none”.
          I cannot change who I am; all that I can do is try and find a way to position myself to turn a potential weakness into strength. And so, after all these years, I have reached a point where I realize that I just need to accept my strengths for what they are and learn to work with what I have.

9 comments:

  1. I'd suggest teaching, but parents and administrators dont like free thinkers, they prefer morons who teach by rote and never stray from the textbook even when it is wrong

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    1. This holds true for some universities as well, as I learned the hard way during my time in academia.

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    2. I know there are disadvantages to our school-system. But - and this is a very but for me - I would not be the person I am today if it weren't for some very great teachers I have had in the past.

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  2. Which means you will continue to lead an interesting life, no matter which path you choose. :)

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  3. For what it's worth, PMG, you are giving yourself the same advice that I would give you, if you asked me for my advice. Accept yourself. Build on your strengths. Position yourself so your weaknesses either don't matter or matter less. I don't see how you could much improve on that. It's interesting to me that we think alike here.

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    1. Thanks Paul - it's hard sometimes to see objectively when it comes to yourself.

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  4. One need not prune back interests as one grows older. It's natural to have diverse interests and live in different circles.

    Don't feel bad about being a jane of all trades. Use this time in your life to explore different things and discover what you excel at and feel enthusiastic about. If you're true to yourself, you'll find that those interests can interlock in surprising ways.

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    1. Working on it! And it has been an interesting journey, to say the least. :)

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