Comments on: Social Comparisons @ Grad School

By: Jessamyn

Jessamyn — Wed, 13 May 2009 17:42:24 +0000

Personally, I take great pleasure in hearing about the successes of my fellow students, and in supporting them through their failures when asked to. I think it is possible to have the strength to set aside one’s own feelings of envy and be happy for friends and colleagues who attain highly desirable jobs.

By: maureen

maureen — Thu, 07 May 2009 21:22:35 +0000

People might also not advertise their successes because they don’t want to share what they did to get the hot job or internship and thus give away a competitive advantage they might have found. Honestly, I think this is more the reason for the secrecy than not wanting to make other people jealous.

By: kmccurdy

kmccurdy — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 15:03:11 +0000

I’m going to add an anonymous comment I received from someone else, just to add to the conversation:

“I think that a lot of people keep quiet about internships or jobs that they are applying to or interviewing for because they don’t want people to apply to the same jobs at the same time; however, sharing this information could be helpful to everyone at the school as the better positions that everyone gets will overall affect the reputation of the school in the long-term.”

By: kmccurdy

kmccurdy — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 23:45:25 +0000

I think it’s great to share our successes with each other – I would hope that individuals could keep their enviousness under wraps and focus on supporting one another. Learning about others’ awesome jobs and winning submissions [to whatever contest] helps all of us understand how to better compete out there.

I think this was a slightly controversial post – thanks for engaging, Hung! I will check out that book.

By: hungtruong

hungtruong — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 23:35:51 +0000

I just read half of (I had to return the book to the library!) Mindset:

http://www.amazon.com/Mindset-Psychology-Success-Carol-Dweck/dp/1400062756

It touches on the whole turning inferiority (or failure) into motivation thing. It’s worthwhile to read, though you seem to be in the camp of people with a “growth mindset,” people who tend to work harder instead of giving up.

I realized that I’m pretty bad at the whole not telling people stuff based on social similarity and whatnot. I just tell everyone when I fail at things. And when I succeed. Social comparison is a double-edged sword. I try and accentuate the positive in everything, myself.

I guess I should work on being more tactful at saying certain things. But that’s kind of hard when you write everything on your blog!