Monday, March 27, 2006 @11:02 PM
Close to twenty years ago, a young school girl was encouraged to take part in her school’s story-telling competition. She wasn’t exactly sure what the competition was. Or I should put it this way; she didn’t know what she was supposed to do if she had to register for the competition. Nevertheless, she went ahead because her mother and her aunt told her to do so.
“I don’t think I would win,” the small girl muttered.
Of course she was right. She didn’t win. How could she win if she was too nervous and forgot half of her story on stage?
Did she give up? No, not that she was really determined. Her mother and her aunt pushed her to sign up another competition again. This time, she protested and complained.
“I didn’t win last time. It is likely that I’ll lose again.”
“You shouldn’t give up before starting. Let me tell you a story.” Her aunt continued telling a story.
“There’s this girl who’s from Class X. She wanted to participate in this speech competition. She did her research on the topic and prepared the speech. Everything was well-prepared. But in the end, her teacher voted her out and chose the other girl. This girl approached her teacher and reasoned to her that she was well-prepared and was qualified for the competition. The teacher was embarrassed because she knew she didn’t like this girl. Yet this girl did not give up easily. Finally, the teacher had to compromise and let her sign up for the competition. But she warned her, “You aren’t that good. I have to let you go ahead with this just because you asked for it!”…”
“How did the girl go?”
“She came up as the first runner-up. She even beat out the other girl nominated by her teacher.”
After listening to the story, this girl agreed to participate in the competition. She practiced very hard, days and nights. Yep, she lost again. For the next three years, she didn’t win any story telling competitions for 3 languages her school held. Was she disappointed after each contest? Yes, of course. But the story her aunt told her remained in her mind. She treated the other girl as her learning model. At one time, one of her class teachers crossed her name off from the participation list giving the reason that she had participated too many times and should step down to let others have the chance of participating the contest. The girl just shrugged and unlike her role model, she did not fight for her rights for representing the class. But she did not give up either. She still continued to participate for the rest of the competitions. Just when no one expected this girl to break her record, she became the champion for a speech competition in her school when she was in Grade 5. Since then, she was the frequent champion for other speech contests for three languages. She even represented her school for speech competition up to the State level for two years.
Many years later, this girl was on her final year (an additional as well as optional year of her degree). Students were selected to enroll into this optional year. They were assigned to a particular department to perform an individual research project for a year. The thesis work comprised 70% of the final assessment. Among the 25 students enrolled in this program within the department, this girl wasn’t the brilliant of all. In fact she came out as one of the lower ranks. Anyhow, she was hoping for miracle to happen. Who knows miracle would make her a great scientist right? No, miracles only happen in fairy tales. This girl did not do that well in her overall assessment for that year. Based on her result, she stood no chance in applying for Graduate school, needless to say being awarded a scholarship to do so. She was upset and disappointed. She went to talk to her supervisor then and her course co-coordinator respectively. Both noted to her that she was not suitable for research.
“You should be happy that at least you were accepted for doing this optional year. Your overall mark from the past three years of your degree wasn’t that remarkable. Now you’ve done this additional year. It has opened your eye of what is research. With this extra experience you gained from here, you should be able to find a better job than other students who did not do this extra year.”
“But I really want to go to Grad. School...”
“I don’t think you are suitable. Not everyone is meant to do research. And you still can be in research. You can get a job as a research assistant and still get a lot of fun out of it.”
So this girl walked away feeling more upset because this time she has lost hope. Her dream of pursuing something she thought she would enjoy and good at was dashed all of a sudden. It hit her real hard. Perhaps her mentors were correct; she should not be too ambitious. She should know her limits. And what her mentors said was proved right after going through many rejections from her application for graduate schools. She was left with no choice except to find a research assistant job that would be closest to pursuing her dream.
She thought she had given up Grad. School after she started work. But deep down her heart, there’s always a dim light of hope. Maybe I am not that bad after all? Maybe I can still make it for research. With the many “maybes” spinning in her head, she decided to give it a final try. She started applying again. She was rejected for her first application. “Oh well. What’s news?” The disappointment sank in soon enough she continued applying again. With this story coming thus far, what is your guess about the ending?
I’m afraid I can’t tell you the ending. I would love to, but the story hasn’t ended yet. Well, all I know was she was offered a position and she’s close to half way in granting her degree. How is she doing? Well, she’s pretty much engrossed in learning new things. She told her current supervisor that she’s not sure whether does she have talent in this field. But nevertheless she wanted to try and learn as much as she could. Her supervisor responded, “Almost everyone has been through this stage. Many of us said we have no talents. But in the end, some of us are able to make it.”
Perhaps this girl can become a star in this field. Or perhaps she’s really not that good and will end up in a different career. At least she has proved to herself that she did actually make it to Graduate School in spite of what her former mentors had predicted.
Who said you can’t make it? If you don’t try, then you certainly can’t make it. But if you try, anything is indeed possible.
