One of my biggest pet peeves is arrogance and cockiness. I just find it super annoying to talk to people who like to talk about how much better they are at something than other people or, worse, like to put down other people who are worse than them at something. And while it may very well be true that they are absolutely outstanding at something, I could really care less sometimes.

I’m not saying I’m absolutely immune to having an ego. In my defense though, I don’t really get the urge to get into ego wars except with really arrogant people. Even then I’m pretty hesitant about doing it because I don’t really want to sink to that level.

One instance that comes to mind is when I see some of my undergraduate biology peers talking about other majors, such as psychology, kinesiology, or majors in the arts. I’ve seen some of them brag about how much harder biology is, and about how much smarter they are than some students in other majors and stuff like that. I don’t really care for arguments like that because I believe that different types of intelligences dominate various fields in the first place. Being able to excel at anything is admirable, regardless of the field. In any case, I know of arts majors who I think are way more intelligent in the traditional sense than many of those same science students I’ve seen waving their egos around.

Fortunately, I don’t like to talk to people like that, so I don’t really have to hear it on a regular basis. But that doesn’t stop it from annoying me!

There’s one message board I visit sometimes catered towards students interested in medical school. It amazes, but not really surprises me, when I see that some of the medical students who post are ridiculously arrogant. I’ve noticed that while they seemed kind of obnoxious before getting into medical school, they really turned on the arrogance when they got in. I’ve seen some of them absolutely attack undergraduate students, as if the fact that they are medical students puts them in sort of magical position that allows them to call everyone else stupid. Of course, when you are on a message board where 90% of the users are dreaming to be in your position, no one dares to argue with you! I’m not denying that I sometimes see high school or undergraduate students ask some relatively obvious questions, but if that makes you mad or you get pleasure from making them feel stupid, then I think that is just really sad.

Everything is relative. There’s no question that I often get questions in tutoring or from the readers of this website that seem absolutely obvious to me – but that’s because I’m pretty experienced in those fields. If those questions weren’t obvious to me, then I would be the wrong person to ask! The reason I don’t get mad or ignore questions is because I understand that I wouldn’t wanted to be called stupid or ignored if I had a question myself. I know there are definitely topics out there where I would say or ask “dumb” things.

The reason why some of these students lack humility is often because they haven’t seen how much larger the world is, and therefore, haven’t been in many positions where they are at the “bottom rung” of the ladder. Once you experience a lot of situations where the people around you are just so much better than you at something, you start to learn some humility, and realize there is still so much to learn about everything.

I’d like to think I’m a pretty humble guy in general (or am I not humble for saying that? hmmm…). When I did really well in the scholarship process in Grade 12, I didn’t really tell anyone except my family. I don’t think anyone except my family knew about all of the scholarships I had won. I just didn’t feel comfortable talking to my friends about how well I had done when I knew that many of them could be struggling to pay off university; it just didn’t feel right.

I think the main reason for this is that through winning awards, scholarships, or competitions, I end up having to meet people who are way better than me at different things. For example, while I was probably one of the top mathematics students in my school, when I went to the Ontario Mathematics Olympics, I was not even close to being one of the best mathematics students there. Through experiences like that, I know how it feels to be on the other side when you aren’t as good at something as the people around you, and so I sure as heck don’t want to make other people feel bad about their abilities.

Furthermore, one of the problems with having too big of an ego is that it prevents you from developing and improving yourself. If you don’t believe there is more to learn, you probably won’t get better at something. One of the things I’ve noticed about the top people in many fields is that they are often quite humble, in the sense that while they realize they are good (i.e. they are still confident), they are humble enough to recognize that they aren’t perfect and there is always room for improvement.