I believe that the most powerful thing I have gained from Stevens is no longer fearing rejection. I remember stepping foot on campus at the young age of 18 and being fearful to even email a professor to ask to be excused from class for illness. Now, I ask for what I want, frequently and with confidence, but it did take me a long time to get here.
The first time I candidly asked a professor for a favor was in my first year at Stevens. I felt lost and unsure as to how to navigate my new major, Quantitative Social Science (QSS), and the internship space. I reached out to the major coordinator asking if there was any way I could get involved with outreach for QSS, in hopes that I would be able to develop a mentorship relationship with a professor. I remember reading my email to myself eight times, sending it to my mom for approval, and anxiously awaiting a response.
Now, I consider this professor to be the greatest influence on my time at Stevens. Under her mentorship and example, I have grown into a more confident individual, and I do not fear rejection as much as I once did. I feel like the advice she instilled in me was simple — “It can’t hurt to ask.” Neither novel nor unique advice, but I think that women especially struggle with this.
We are taught to make ourselves small, to not embarrass ourselves, and to make sure that we are overly qualified for everything we engage with. I never would have thought that I could simply ask someone for an internship, yes, literally ask. One of my most foundational and paid internship experiences came about from simply asking.
And with that comes learning to deal with rejection, which I have done hundreds of times over, and it does get easier. I spent a summer on a local political campaign knocking on doors and gathering feedback from constituents. I probably knocked on over 2,000 doors in one summer, and each door was an opportunity for acceptance or rejection. Rejection definitely won that battle, but in a way that strengthened me significantly. I’ve had doors slammed in my face more times than I can count, and this is something I am proud of.
Fear is the number one thing standing in between you and what you want. I recall my run for the Hoboken Democratic Committee and calling a long list of names, begging for write-in votes (I missed the ballot deadline). I remember my opening pitch: “Hi, my name is Anna Dabrowski, I am your neighbor and running to be on the Democratic Committee. I think it’s really important that this district receive representation, can we chat?” Sometimes they would say no, sometimes they would hang up, the majority of calls were between me and an answering machine, and I remember a particularly hurtful, “No, I don’t think I will be doing that.”
But I only remember all of this because I am choosing to write about it now. These hundreds of rejections are simply the thousands of brush strokes that make up the backdrop of my life. The foreground of the painting is beautiful, but the scene would never have been completed without the thousands of coin tosses.
