Academic Confidence Quotes

When I got out of the military, I finished up my education at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, and I had some mentors who said, 'You got what it takes. You should consider going to graduate school, getting a Ph.D. in neuroscience.' I didn't think I had what it took until somebody who had a Ph.D. told me I had what it takes.

I never failed a class. Never.

I didn't think I was good at anything, didn't do well in school. And then in the third grade, I was going to a public school. And the teacher was putting math problems on the board. And I said to myself - it's amazing how you can remember certain incidents at any age that made an impression - I asked myself why is she putting those up when the answers are obvious. And then I saw it wasn't obvious to anybody else in the class. So I said, "Hey, I'm good at something."

I realized that there are many people who are very good students, but they think of themselves as bad students. At the end of the day, what they are really missing is way to understand where their gaps are and a way to address those gaps.

I was always regarded as being better than ninety percent of the kids in school, but I was also something of a loner.

I want girls to feel the confidence you get from being smart.

I wasn't that good at science, and I gave up on math long before I should have. I like to think if I were in school today that would be different.

I'd never taken an SAT prep course. They were for weaker students.

Maybe you think, 'I'm not college material.' Maybe you worry that you don't have the money. Then you take the SAT. You see that colleges are getting in touch with you. You begin to think maybe you are ready for college.

For the first time, I wasn't afraid to be smart, and she often stayed after school to work with me.

I was a university professor, I could talk on and on and on. Give me a podium and you have to drag me off with a hook.

We academic scientists move within a certain sphere, we can go on being useless up to a point, in the confidence that sooner or later some use will be found for our studies. The mathematician, of course, prides himself on being totally useless, but usually turns out to be the most useful of the lot. He finds the solution but he is not interested in what the problem is: sooner or later, someone will find the problem to which his solution is the answer.

As I talk about strengths and weaknesses in academic economics, one interesting fact you are entitled to know is that I never took a course in economics. And with this striking lack of credentials, you may wonder why I have the chutzpah to be up here giving this talk. The answer is I have a black belt in chutzpah. I was born with it.

When I was growing up, I always knew I'd be in the top of my class in math, and that gave me a lot of self-confidence.

Princeton was really hard. I had learned how to write well at boarding school, and I knew if I majored in English and I just did the work, I could get B's.

I'm very educated and can give you somewhat of a vocabulary, but I don't get to the philosophical side.

I didn't work especially hard at mathematics at school, because I knew that's what I'd be doing later.

I walked into an international economics tutorial, and the professor said, 'I don't know how to teach a woman.' I said, 'It's the same as teaching a man.' I just sat down, and he had no choice but to start teaching. When I handed in my first paper, I think that shut him up.

When you're growing up with a learning disability, it shoots your confidence and belief in what you can accomplish academically; it really damages it.

I was sort of lazy at school, but I realize I still have something to bring to the subject which is comforting. I feel I am not as stupid as I thought I was.

About Grade 9 and Grade 10, I had a fantastic drama teacher, and it was one of the first subjects I actually felt that I was good at. I wasn't a mathematician. Didn't like science, any of those subjects. English and Drama were the two subjects that I loved and felt that I was good at.

My favorite subject was recess. Fortunately for me, I had a mother who believed I was smart.