Lack of Self-Confidence at work 8

[OilBoiler]

Hey everyone,

I'm a recent May graduate and have worked in my company since then including an internship last year.

I just wanted to know if when you first started as an engineer, you felt like you really didn't much have self-confidence? That's how I feel right now and sometimes very overwhelmed, but my supervisor keeps telling me that I need to be patient with myself and take it one day at a time. And of course to remember to learn something new every day.

Thanks!

 

[IRstuff]

OilBoiler,

Don't worry too much about your feelings as described. Praise is generally much harder to get than blame.

When it comes, take it and revel in it; for the next time may be long in coming.




TTFN

 

[quark]

I experienced it twice so far. Initially when I started my career and secondly when I switched my job from a chemical company to a pharmaceutical company. I had a feeling that I didn't know even the smallest thing. I kept on asking questions whenever I got doubts. They were good sometimes and stupid at othertimes but I never hesitated.

These things arise, in my opinion, when we are (over)confident about our intelligence or we are envying other good engineering colleagues. Nothing wrong in it and in fact this will help us excel in the future. As others already suggested, try to learn things and put your thinking into them.

You keep on observing the depth of impression by your superiors and colleagues. This is inversely proportional to your experience and you should also learn to mask your smartness in the future.

Good luck,


I strongly suggest you to go into deep basics now. You won't find time for this later.

 

[MadMango]

You keep on observing the depth of impression by your superiors and colleagues. This is inversely proportional to your experience and you should also learn to mask your smartness in the future.

I agree with 66% of this comment. But I can't see the benefit of "masking your smartness in the future." Can this strategy be explained?

[green]"But what... is it good for?"[/green]
Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip.
Have you read faq731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

 

[flamby]

A few years later when the realization strikes you that there are still a thousand thing that you don't know and only a handful of things that you know and still you can get that another job, you will feel a bit confident. By that time, portray confidence, whether or not it is inside you and, in general, be careful to avoid major blunders. As already said, mistakes are inevitable.

 

[whyun]

Making mistakes is one of the most effective ways to learn something new. I've been told long ago not to make mistakes that cost too much money for the company.

What's sweeter than learning from one's own mistakes is learning from someone else's mistakes.

 

[BigH]

I started with an old geotechnical firm. One of the things that I did was to pour over all the older reports that I could find - to see how they handled various soils conditions with respect to choice of foundations, types of reccommendations that they made, etc. When I found good points, I even photocopied them. I would think in most fields of engineering, studying the past projects of your colleagues and company would be a great way to gain experience - and to see that perhaps, they are not all that much smarter than you! This will put you on a faster learning curve, I believe - and your confidence should increase. You might even floor them a bit when they say something and you pull out an old report or design to show that they had done it differently before!

 

[Snork]

A couple of thoughts.

I've been working in engineering going on 20 years, have a B.S., and M.S. in engineering, and my PE, and to this day I find so many things I don't know that I wonder if I will ever be knowledgeable enough to feel competent. I've heard it said that the more you know, the more you know you don't know; so I have hope that being totally ignorant is a real sign of having great knowledge.

Sounds kind of Zen, doesn't it?

In my experience it is far more pleasant, and productive, to work with someone who still has things to learn, and is willing to do so, than it is to work with someone who knows everything. The corollary to the statement above is definitely true: If you know you know it all, you know nothing!!

Just keep learning and you'll be fine.

 

[JAE]

Scott - that touches on an old saying I once heard about Ph.D's -

They are people who over time begin to know more and more about less and less until they know absolutely everything about nothing.

 

[johnwiss]

The very fact that you are feeling this way means you are probably going to do quite well--it means you know what you don't know and you are being challenged. Find a good mentor who knows more than you and learn like a sponge. People I have worked with who are new and think they know it all or feel unchallenged are always trouble. Get the leg-up and bust ass now--trust me after 15 years in the business you will not absorb as quickly so you should be a "guru" by then and only need to absorb new technological things rather than make up for forgotten or unused skills or proficiency you should have already when you get to that point in your career.

 

[someonesdad]

There have been many good comments on this thread. I think most of us at one time or another have felt what OilBoiler expressed. I think the most important thing to never let go of is the desire to know "why". Why do we do things this way? Why did that machine break there? Why did that program output an 'X' here in only one time out of a thousand? Etc., etc. The technical people I've valued most over my career are the ones that always asked the crucial "why" questions. Combine that with scientific integrity to make sure you're getting the correct answer and I think you'll be a valued and respected contributor.