To Top Students: Drop your EGO! Ask for help, please
Attention to students who feel like they’re expected to have all the answers! You are allowed to ask for help.
When you’ve been a student your classmates look up to, it sometimes feels hard to ask when you’re in need. You have been so used to being the person being asked that asking seems out of character. You unconsciously prioritize your ego over efficiency. Remember the moments when you encounter difficulties in lessons or lectures, you will do anything but ask for help to understand it better. You convince yourself that it’s not even a matter of superiority because you acknowledge the fact that some of your classmates have more knowledge and experience on a certain topic. Still, you would rather learn it by yourself. Maybe, it will take you five hours but all of that is worth it because you would’ve been able to retain your ego. From the bottom of my heart, stop this bad habit and go ask for help.
To be frank, I used to be the type of person who refused to ask for help because I was obsessed with the idea of independence and self-sufficiency. I had been wrong in my approach and has probably hindered me from reaching greater heights. Yes, I’ve been on top of my class from 11th grade to 12th grade but the level that I’m at could’ve been much higher had I dropped my ego. It was the very thing that hindered me from truly adopting a growth mindset. Even when I was having such a hard time understanding certain pieces of information, I would still skim through so many articles trying my absolute darn best to understand on my own.
Ironically, I’m someone who encourages my colleagues to ask for help because I can offer assistance. I believe that it is more efficient for someone who specializes in a certain area to teach it to a novice rather than have the novice try to understand it all on their own. According to my friends, classmates, and peers to whom I’ve assisted, they saved a lot of time learning from me as opposed to scrambling different sources to understand on their own. So, now, I’m like, why didn’t I apply it to myself?
Recently, now that I’m in first-year college, I have access to people who are smarter than me in certain areas and even just in general. I thought it was going to be a hard pill to swallow but luckily, during the summer, I trained myself to think myself of someone whose curiosity is yet to be satisfied. Now, when I struggle with particular activities, I hit up one of my classmates to ask for help and they would give me a comprehensible response. Of course, I would still check online to double check but mostly because it’s second nature to me at this point. However, the point is that I managed to save so much time getting help to understand a particular topic rather than spending thrice the time. On the other hand, I am still someone who my classmates ask and I’m still willing to help them. So, it’s not like I’m suddenly not considered competent because I started asking for help from my colleagues.
However, the most important realization that I want students who feel like they should be alone to strive to have is that you don’t have to do it alone. Even if you are an introvert, remember that you have friends that you can rely on. It’s important to break out of our shells and try to approach each other because it’s one of the best things we could ever experience. You never know what kind of knowledge you will gain from your peers or how deep your friendship may become. And for those students who are just plain selfish when it comes to the knowledge they possess, I wish that one day you find it in your heart that it is more fulfilling to share rather than gatekeep.
In conclusion, it’s time to start asking for help. School is not a single-player casual game, it’s a co-op multiplayer. Like any co-op multiplayer game, you may be recognized individually, but it doesn’t stop you from working together to boost each other and reach their highest potential. And when you feel like someone is being left out, be the person to approach them and invite them to the party. Learning should be a fun adventure, not a monotonous grind for information.
