Week 4: I am an iceberg; there’s more than meets the eye
This is week 3 into my Masters course. In our first lectures, we were asked to introduce ourselves. I panicked.
How do you sum up years of professional and personal experiences, and accomplishments, into 30 seconds (because go any longer and you fear you may be hogging up lecture/air time in a class of 48 students)?
And how do you see past the words someone else has chosen to use to tell the world about themselves?
“Hi, I’m Wen Xin. I am a data scientist at EY DnA.”
This was how I used to introduce myself not too long ago, when I first started at EY. I was a data scientist not so much by choice, but mainly by definition in the HR system when I was hired.
For a while, I struggled really hard to live up to that title, I was overwhelmed by impostor syndrome. And yet, for that while, my ego refused to let it go because it was the coolest and the hottest (yes, at the same time) job on the market.
My wake up call came in the guise of a performance review, when I was told that my “data scientist” title was limiting the opportunities that came my way. I had to decide — did I want to continue letting this title I didn’t choose stop me from achieving the things I’ve never dreamt I could achieve? Did I want to continue letting other people’s labels of me define who I was and the things I could do?
I have since consciously dropped any associations I’d had to the term “data scientist” (no offence to other data scientists out there, you guys rock). And I started exploring the idea of introducing myself with the things I do and like, instead of with terms and nouns.
“Hi, I’m Wen Xin. I work in the data and analytics space.”
“Hi, I’m Wen Xin. I pole dance.”
“Hi, I’m Wen Xin. I write music on the piano and the guitar.”
And I found that I liked myself better this way. This way, I wasn’t weighed down by a title and all the stereotypes tagged to it. Some may say it’s merely word play. But hey, it all starts with how you feel on the inside, doesn’t it?
“All of us are put in boxes… Some people have the courage to break free.”
— Geena Rocero
With time, I’ve learnt that I don’t need to be boxed in by other’s definitions of who I am. And while I agree that it makes life easier to put labels on people and things (especially in the professional world), maybe we could also learn to see past the tip of the iceberg and recognise others for their whole being.
Because there’s always more to someone than meets the eye.
Week 3: Origins and cultural identity — what’s in a name?
— — —
Side story: Back to that little teaser from Week 0, why the hashtag #myvoyagehome. Those who know me closely know I’ve been a JJ Lin fan since I was 12. It probably isn’t surprising when I say #myvoyagehome actually pays homage to his debut album, Music Voyager, released in 2003.
Because his music is, after all, a big part of my iceberg — hidden or not.
