I\u2019ve received a lot of advice over the years, some good, some bad. Parents, professors, Uber drivers \u2013 it seems like everyone has something to offer. The best advice I\u2019ve ever received came from a professor on the first day of my undergraduate Galois theory course. Instead of starting the class talking about the syllabus or jumping right into lecture, she first gave us an important bit of advice:<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t be afraid to ask silly questions. <\/em><\/p>\n Never before had anyone explicitly told me that it was okay to ask \u201cdumb\u201d or \u201cobvious\u201d questions, and truthfully the advice was revelatory for me. The problem, however, is that I rarely follow this advice. I\u2019m an anxious person, and for some reason I have this notion in my head that if I ask a silly or dumb question, I\u2019m irreparably sullying my reputation. Of course, this isn\u2019t true \u2013 nobody\u2019s keeping score. I\u2019m just a graduate student trying to learn as much as possible before I\u2019m set loose onto the world, and it\u2019s in my best interest to ask these sorts of \u201csilly\u201d questions, because often these questions aren\u2019t silly at all.<\/p>\n Reflecting further, I think we could expand on my professor\u2019s advice a bit:<\/p>\n Don<\/em>\u2019t be afraid to look silly. <\/em><\/p>\n Graduate school is hard. Taking classes is hard. Doing research is hard. Making sure you pick the right advisor and trying to find some semblance of work-life balance \u2013 it\u2019s all hard. But there\u2019s one difficulty I encounter on a daily basis that I never took into consideration prior to starting graduate school: I\u2019m always afraid of looking silly, of embarrassing myself. Maybe I ask a question during a talk that has an \u201cobvious\u201d answer, or maybe I\u2019m the one giving a talk and I make a big error that everyone catches before I do, or maybe a student asks me a question in office hours and I have no idea how to answer them. But what good is advice if you don\u2019t follow it? So I guess I\u2019m dedicating this year to getting over my fear of looking like a fool. Perhaps I\u2019ll set up that logic seminar I\u2019ve been wanting to organize but haven\u2019t out of nervousness, or perhaps I\u2019ll give a talk outside my department for the first time in my academic career. If there are things in graduate school you haven\u2019t done because you\u2019re afraid of embarrassing yourself or looking dumb, maybe it\u2019s time to reconsider \u2013 after all, no one\u2019s keeping score.<\/p>\n