What does one do when this feeling becomes overwhelming?

[whozum]

What does one do when this feeling becomes overwhelming?

 

[vanesch]

What does one do when this feeling becomes overwhelming?

Keep to the job: all chances for promotion are now united

 

[Pengwuino]

Keep to the job: all chances for promotion are now united

 

[whozum]

I don't get it, and it was a more serious question..

 

[bomba923]

Rule #1: Try to gain competence.
(eh..you know, work harder, research..eh..etc)
Rule #2: Don't be jealous.

 

[Pengwuino]

be less incompetant

 

[vanesch]

I don't get it, and it was a more serious question..

Ok, I appologize for my maybe misplaced pun.

The reason was in fact that *I've seen so many totally incompetent people in decision-taking positions*. This is NOT a joke, but a true reality. The technically competent boss is a happy exception in the several professional worlds (private and public) I've been in.
It was the case when I was at university, it was the case when I worked for HP, it was the case when I was teaching...
Always I had the impression that my superiors (except in ONE single happy case) would not have qualified very brightly on the exams relevant to the matter on which they had to decide technically. That didn't mean they did a lousy job. They just took chewed-down information from their collaborators, and based upon intuition, gut feeling and other things, they went for one of the proposals. Throwing dice would have been about just as good as decision making process.
At university, I've met brilliant professors and also very "low-grade" professors ; these last ones where often the ones politiking most and getting in many commissions, attracting responsabilities and doing a lot of networking.
When I was at HP, my boss was a very bright guy. However, he suffered from exactly the same problem on the next level: division managers who didn't really technically understand what we were doing and took random decisions.
In research institutions, again, I met the same phenomenon: many of the bright guys were NOT in the decision-taking positions. I've met people deciding upon high-level architecture on instrumentation electronics WHO DIDN'T UNDERSTAND KIRCHHOFF'S LAW. People who decided upon what front end electronics to use who didn't understand the concept of impulse response and convolution integral.

 

[Kalimaa23]

Dilbert's principle in action...

 

[franznietzsche]

I've met people deciding upon high-level architecture on instrumentation electronics WHO DIDN'T UNDERSTAND KIRCHHOFF'S LAW. People who decided upon what front end electronics to use who didn't understand the concept of impulse response and convolution integral.

Wow...

 

[quantumdude]

What does one do when this feeling becomes overwhelming?

Take comfort in the fact that you've recognized that you are not performing as well as you can, and that you can improve.

See the following study: http://www.lingsoft.fi/~reriksso/competence.html

There are many incompetent people in the world. But a Cornell University study has shown that most incompetent people do not know that they are incompetent.

People who do things badly, according to David A. Dunning, a professor of psychology at Cornell, are usually supremely confident of their abilities -- more confident, in fact, than people who do things well.

One reason that the ignorant also tend to be the blissfully self-assured, the researchers believe, is that the skills required for competence often are the same skills necessary to recognize competence.

(click link above for full story)

 

[rachmaninoff]

whozum: You mispelled "Incompetence".

 

[whozum]

whozum: You mispelled "Incompetence".

I was on oxycotton.

 

[ek]

Oxycodone. (Ok, that might have been on purpose, but that's not even how the word is spoken)

I feel incompetent sometimes. Spending a night with a textbook usually helps the situation.

Also looking back at other things I've struggled with and since conquered and thinking, hey, this stuff is no more difficult, I can get this. That seems to help.

Of course, if you really ARE incompetant, then you are in trouble. But odds are really good you are not. As that report suggests, incompetent people usually aren't cognizant of their incompetence.

 

[gokugreene]

Actually the word is spoken that way.. "Oxycontin" is the trade name for oxycodone which whozum is referring to.

 

[whozum]

OxyContin is a trade name for the drug oxycodone hydrochloride, or oxycodone HCL. Street names for Oxycodone include Oxy, O.C., Hillbilly heroin, Oxycotton and Killer.

Maybe incompetent wasn't the word but, sometimes I feel that this course of study requires an intellect and skill above that which I have. Granted, and I dn't mean to be full of myself, I'm a pretty smart kid, I still think the bar is still a little higher in terms of 'natural ability' than I can jump, and a natural bar isn't something you can do much about.

 

[loseyourname]

Well, if that's actually the case, and you're not just down on yourself, why not switch to a course of study that doesn't require a level of ability above what you possess? I don't want to encourage aiming for mediocrity, but if you don't believe you can succeed, chances are pretty good that you'll end up being right.

 

[bigplanet401]

Stay in anti-de Quitter space!

 

[abszero]

I think most people will, at some point, feel incompetent. I've had those feelings every year I've been in college, but the trick is to realize that everybody struggles with material at some point, even the smartest amongst us (I certainly do not qualify in that). Just keep plugging along at your own pace, and eventually you'll get it. There is a difference between incompetence (which in my mind is the almost willful effort to avoid knowing that one is doing) and merely "not getting it" (which can be overcome with time and work).

I like that Cornell article, by the way.