Sitting on a chair in front of Skinner, I realized my journey with self-efficacy and mindset has changed along with my time at Mount Holyoke College. The most obvious signal is always the same – not confidence in myself but comfort and belonging.
Ironically, the moment I realized the importance of self-efficacy was not at Mount Holyoke College but at UMass Amherst. In Spring 2023, I took Introduction to Algorithm at UMass Amherst. The professor who taught me was considered legendary at UMass. His biweekly challenge set was hard to the point that even the professor taught at the different sessions but the same homework and slides, could not solve and catch up with his lectures.
On the first week of classes, in front of the bus coming back to MoHo, I found it hard to restrain myself from breaking into tears as I did not understand anything no matter how prepared I was before and after classes. This was a shock for me as I normally could understand well inside MoHo’s classes without any pre-class reading/video. I felt dumb and isolated during the weekly lab – everyone seemed to understand except for me. “This is not where I belong” – I told myself. Since then, I did not feel comfortable being in the class and it was hard to even just come to UMass and listen to the lecture.
But then, I came to the office hours the professor, and he worked me through my ideas for constructing the algorithm, encouraged me when I was right, and let me know that I belonged in this class. In retrospect, what he tried to do seemed to be to increase my self-efficacy and change my mindset. Everything seemed hard then did not mean anything wrong with myself as a person but more of my familiarity with the knowledge. Things tended to be better with time if I gave it more time and had more resources and opportunities to sharpen my skills. Later, I found it more comfortable to learn in the class. Not because it got any easier but because my self-efficacy supported me.
A note for my past self is when comparing, try to get away from my head at that time and look more broadly. A few days after the first lab, in all of the TA hours ( about 6 of them a week), there was usually a line of other students trying to get a hint of each question in Challenge Set/ Homework. Even the guy I thought was so far ahead of me in the first lab was struggling so hard. He could be better in the first lab, and I could run faster on that TA hour. Nothing fixed. Any comparison and conclusion were too soon and seemed not fair to anyone.
Back to the present, I am intrigued by the Dandelion Painting – it was so beautiful to see the smooth blend between music, light, and art by the magic of tech. I believed my self-efficacy and growth mindset had my back. They made me comfortable and free with the idea of creating a comparable project in this class. Probably not in one day, but a small success each day is still a success. Just like the snowball effect, we will never know how big a “small success a day” can become.