Office Hours: Confidence on Campus

As I have tried over the years to help young colleagues transition to the work of Student Affairs, I have been reminded by these new professionals about how intimidating college students can sometimes be. Young staff would comment to me that “these students are so smart, so accomplished, so tech savvy, so worldly, so sophisticated, so sure of themselves.”

In many ways, this observation was right on target, as our students were highly intellectual and accomplished, had traveled abroad, had experienced various cultures, and appeared to be quite sure of themselves.I was always impressed with their global knowledge of food and their expectations of what institutional amenities should be available to them. “What are the hours of the climbing wall?” they’d ask, or “Where can I find the sushi bar?”

Frankly, I sometimes overlooked this perceived “intimidation factor,” possibly because I had worked at the institution for so long or maybe because I, too, was an alum of the school and had never viewed myself as at all intimidating. Perhaps as an administrator for over four decades and someone who lived in a freshman residence hall as a faculty member for almost 10 years, I had experienced students in their daily routine and become quite familiar with the ups and downs of their lives.

What I can tell you is that no matter how smart or how traveled or how experienced these students may have been, they would regularly share with me how they lacked confidence in various aspects of their lives.

I can vividly recall attending a symphony orchestra concert and enjoying the performance of a student I knew. How can he do that, I would ask myself? There he is, on stage, playing a piano solo in front of hundreds of people with such self-assurance, when earlier that week, he had shared his struggle to speak up in class. Or the student who was a very successful member of the moot court team but was hesitant to ask her hallmates to join her for dinner in the dining hall for fear that they might say “no.”

During her presidency at Duke University, Dr. Nan Keohane chaired a comprehensive study of the status of women at the school. Looking at the campus culture for female-identified faculty, staff and students, the undergraduate women who were interviewed as part of the study spoke of an expectation of “effortless perfection”¹ in their lives – the need to appear as though everything they did academically and socially was accomplished with great ease. And yet, these women also reported a decline in their sense of self-confidence during the course of their Duke careers, with many of them sharing that they spent too much time worrying about what others thought of them. I certainly have observed this phenomenon and in mentoring college men and women, I have shared my vulnerabilities related to my own self-concept.

In the end, what I’ve observed about students, about myself, about people in general is that even though we may appear to be confident, we may not truly feel it. And if we do feel it, we may not always feel it. Most importantly, what I’ve learned and experienced myself is that we can build our confidence. Although transitions and new situations may provide particular challenges, focusing on self-compassion, practicing self-care, developing a growth mindset, and nurturing positive relationships can help us grow our self-confidence. The students who have embraced these strategies have clearly reported an increase in their confidence.

Although college provides a great opportunity for self-reflection and personal improvement, it is not the only time or venue for confidence building in our lives. We can (and should) work on confidence building from a very young age and throughout our lives, wherever we are, whatever we are doing.

Finally, being intimidated by what we perceive others’ confidence to be is not particularly helpful. Instead, we should focus on building our own confidence each and every day. Isn’t that what Legends is all about!

¹ Caralena Peterson, Duke class of 2015, has written a book on this topic entitled The Effortless Perfection Myth: Debunking the Myth and Revealing the Path to Empowerment for Today's College Women