College has taught me to believe in myself

By Mai Cha Vang

“Women want to learn to become leaders, but they don’t call themselves leaders.”

When I heard a speaker say this at a recent conference, I saw myself as I was in high school: Ambitious without recognizing it, hard-working but not confident enough to go after leadership jobs. College has changed me.

In high school, I wanted to become the editor-in-chief of our student newspaper. Although my writing skill paled in comparison to some of my peers, I figured that my experience and hard work could compensate for that. Through a lot of work, my writing skills had improved, and I was proud of the work I had accomplished on the newspaper.

Senior year finally arrived. The newspaper’s adviser wanted students to take initiative and declare the jobs they wanted. I missed the first meeting of the year due to another activity.

Later, I found out that two of my classmates who were on-and-off staff also wanted to be editor-in-chief. My confidence wavered.
Not only were they smart; they could write better than I did.

I gave up. Although I had worked really hard to gain experience so I could be confident about stepping up to the role of editor-in-chief, I did not want to face embarrassment if I lost the competition.

Of course, I kept my silence and congratulated my peers with a happy face. When all the positions in the club were filled, I – the one with the most experience – chose to remain position-free and just help out as much as I could.

There were times when I took over the duties of the editor-in-chief, layout designer, news reporter and photographer. Once again, I was stuck in a cycle of “helping out as much as I could” without taking a leadership role.

I still remember there were a couple of people who said that they had expected me to become the editor-in-chief because they saw me running around the school interviewing people and working on the newsletter. I was surprised to hear that because I didn’t have such confidence in myself.

I’m now a junior at the University of St. Thomas and have done things that I could not have imagined doing in high school. Last year, I was the president of ASIA (Asian Students In Action) and made my mark by starting a monthly Asian Americans Dialogue.

I applied to and was accepted to McNair Scholars Program, an intense, competitive, federally program to prepare low-income, first-generation, and minority undergraduate students to go on to graduate school and earn PhDs.

I have also been part of University Advocates for Women and Equity, a staff and faculty council with one student representative, me.

Currently, I have a better sense of where my ambition lies. I have applied for funding through a student research grant program that would allow me to work on a psychology research project with a professor. This fall, I am going to study abroad in South Korea.

Right now, if someone asked if I am ambitious, I would say, “Yes.” I have learned that if I don’t own up to my ambition, I will never get past the wall of fear.