Glass Ceiling

When we do something in life, we normally have a certain expectation of it. When it exceeds our expectations, we are often surprised at the results. When it is below our expectations, however, we normally get angry. This holds true for our academic test results as well. As we do a test, we are aware of how well or poorly we did it. When the results come out, we have a certain expectation of them, whether we expect to have done well, or whether we expect to have fared poorly.

Even for the best of us, this hold true. Sometimes, we screw up during a paper, and we expect to fare poorly for it. Other times, we feel that we have answered all the questions well and truly, and are not surprised when we do well for it. When reality meets up to our expectations, we get less emotional about it; even people who normally do well, when they feel that they won’t in a particular test, and when the results come out, they find that they did as poorly as they felt they did, don’t get too depressed. This is because they knew what was coming their way. The same goes for when they expect to do well and actually do so.

However, what really gets people emotionally unstable is when they find that reality and their expectations aren’t aligned in the same direction. This happens when they expect to do well, but instead do badly, or expect to do badly, but instead do well.
I have been in both situations before, but only once have I been in a situation where I expected to fare well but instead ended up faring badly, and twice when I expected to fare badly, but ended up faring well. Nevertheless, these things do happen and I’ll describe one incident in detail here.

The Australian Mathematics Competition is, in my humble opinion, one of the better mathematics competitions on the planet. It gives everyone due credit, and lets us know how well we fared. As not only the top 3 people in the year and region get recognition, the quiz gives everyone an idea of where they stand in their year and region, at least with regards to their mathematical capability.

While the top 0.5% do get prizes (the percentile varies according to year and region), the next 4.5% get high distinction certificates, while the next 25% get distinction certificates, with the next 30% getting credit certificates. Participants who achieve a certain amount of marks are awarded a proficiency certificate.

When the results came out, I was hoping to get a distinction. The last time I participated, I just scrapped in on a credit, while one of my classmates managed to outdo me and get a distinction himself. Hoping not to be outdone this time, I wanted a distinction.

So when I approached the notice board with all the results pasted up on it, I looked for all the results with “D”s at the end, marking those with distinctions. After figuring out where the Sixth Formers were on the list (we were right at the bottom of every category) I found, to my dismay, that my name was not there. To make matters worse, there were four other from the class next door who had made the grade.

So I looked further down the list to where the “C”s were. And I found many people with credits. To my utter horror, my name was not on the list again.

Ouch.

So I rechecked the list of people who had distinctions, then proceeded to check the list of people who had credits, then finally, to those who had proficiency certificates. Needless to say, my name was not on either three of the lists.

I was left wondering how on earth I was going to face my classmates without even a proficiency certificate to show for a competition which I had so badly wanted to join. Then, just out of curiosity, I looked further up the list to find out who had had prizes and high distinctions this year. Just one person managed to get a prize this year, while three had high distinctions.

It was up there that I found my name. I had pulled off what I had thought I would not be able to do. I had gotten myself a high distinction.

My mental block was that I thought I could not get a high distinction in my life, at least not in the AMC. I was hoping pretty badly for a distinction, but while I had dreamed that I would get a high distinction, reality kept telling me that the most I would get would be a distinction. So I had the equivalent of a glass ceiling, except that this glass ceiling was internal, made up inside my head. One can dream as much as one wants to, but when reality sets in and we realise that we are not capable of doing something, we lower our expectations and set our sights lower.

So low did I set my sights that when it came to looking at my results, I spent more time finding my name than the average person would. This is both literally and figuratively speaking. I didn’t bother looking at the “HD” results first, as I felt that I had had no chance at getting them, while I averted my eyes from them from the moment I saw the results on the notice board. To me, high distinctions were only for those who were very lucky, very good or for the very young. And I was neither three.

At least my judgement said so back then.

We always have an expectation of how well we will perform in any task. For me, this time round, I was pleasantly surprised. I didn’t expect to do this well, but I was happy I did. I practically had a spring in my step as I walked back home. Now, then came how to fool the class into thinking I didn’t do that well. But that’s another story....