Slow Realization

So it turns out that going to Case undermined my self-confidence in the classroom. Now, I don't want to sound like I'm simply bad-mouthing Case. Because this certainly wasn't due to some sort of negative atmosphere within the classroom. I think it's mostly just due to an unfortunate set of circumstances - I chose to major in Statistics at a university with an incredibly small statistics department. This resulted in taking required courses in a less than ideal order, since one pretty much had to take them when they were offered, and the department wasn't big enough to provide much flexibility. Also, there weren't enough profs to offer some classes at both the undergraduate and graduate level, so many course were taught as both a 300-level and 400-level class simultaneously, with differing homework assignments for undergraduate vs. graduate students. But everyone attended the same lecture. Then I decided to earn my BS and MS concurrently, which meant taking nearly all my classes with PhD students, when in reality I was finishing up my senior year. The end result - I learned to expect that everyone in the class knew more than I did, that any idea or suggestion I might have would be overlooking some major assumption, and that I would misinterpret or simply misunderstand nearly every homework assignment. In reality, things were not quite this bad or absolute, but it often felt this way. I don't think I really gave it much thought until lately, when it occurred to me that perhaps I seek more help than I need. Not that asking for help is a bad thing. But I tend to second-guess myself a lot when it comes to interpreting questions or choosing the appropriate approach to a problem. And I really think it stems from these experiences at Case. Which is just unfortunate. On the other hand, I suppose it's better to realize these things now rather than then. Perhaps if I had thought about how "bad" things were, I would not have been nearly as happy as I was. That would have been much more unfortunate than a little second-guessing now.