Hi,
I do apologize if I’m in the wrong place for this and for the length + nature of this post, but it’s nice to be somewhere with other people who may understand the struggle.
I attended a small community college for about four years, due to family issues (cancer, surgeries) and my own health struggles as well. I figured out during this time that I did not want to be a nurse or anything in the healthcare system, but upon further investigation that I loved chemistry, and that research and food science seems to be my sort of business.
I’ve know moved out of home for the first time, got accepted into a highly competitive program in the only school that offers food science in my state (only eleven people were accepted as transfers in my major), and am in the middle of my first week as a junior. Along with this, I also have been accepted as an undergraduate research fellow and may be volunteering elsewhere on campus in labs.
Everything was fine and dandy until school started. Even with my accomplishments I cannot help but feel insecure. You don’t take classes pertaining to food science until your junior year, which is where I am now, dipping my toe into the field. A lot is happening so fast. Other people, who came into the college with me as transfer, seem to know a lot more than me and I feel bad for not being as well spoken or ‘knowledgeable’. It’s ridiculous, and I want to have confidence and to impress people but I have little knowledge to provide and I feel bad about this.
What is expected of me, as an undergraduate just starting out in the field, and as someone who has never conducted undergraduate research? Does anyone have similar experience with coming in and feeling insecure in their direct major? Succeeded in not letting the achievement of others bog you down? I’ve never had a problem like this, but being so far from home in somewhere unknown is all too much at the moment.
Thanks for reading.
J.