Something that I experienced when I came to college for the first time was being undermined. A lot of it came from men who were in the same major as me. This is something that I have never experienced before in my life. All throughout high school, I was defiantly one of the smarter people in my class most of the time so I had never been undermined before, and when people had, it never really came from the guys in my class, it was mostly from my teachers.
The first time I experienced this was this fall in when I was taking a history course. I was expressing how I felt this course was definentaly challenging for me due to the fact that I had never really taken a course like it before and the workload was something I would have to get used to. I do not remember what the comment was exactly but one of my male classmates said something along the lines of “How could you possibly think this class is hard.” When I heard that statement I had no idea what to even say. I ended up not replying because I was so stunned about what had just been said to me. Later that night I was in bed thinking about this comment. I was saying to myself, “Maybe I am actually not that good at history,” or “Maybe I am not the person for this degree.”
After this I had thought about everything I had accomplished pertaining to history. I had done so much to get to this point. I thought about all of the countless hours I had put into AP history classes in high school that helped me find the love for this. Or the joy of opening up my AP scores and seeing that all the hardwork and tears helped me accomplish something so great. After this moment it hit me. You should not let someone make you feel that way. Especially someone who is in the same major as you. He had a lack of faith in me and it felt gender motivated in a way. There were other guys in the class who were doing way worse than me and he would never have the audacity to say this to them.
One of the things that I have lived by since I was young is that when people doubt you, the best thing you can do is prove them wrong. Throughout the rest of the semester, I worked hard enough to the point where I shined in this class. It made me feel empowered and glad for the resilience I had during this time. What I learned from this experience was to never let someone make you feel belittled in something you are proud of.