Advice about uncertainty
I am autistic. Something which has been said about autistic people is that we don't like change. A previous line manager ran with this assumption and others at BT, and it would be an understatement to say that things did not go with us. Least of all because I did not feel heard.
However, I would say that it is not change that I dislike - it is uncertainty. I came to this realisation after seeing Rosie Weldon write about uncertainty rather than change. It had not occurred to me before but, once I read it, it was so obvious that I was shocked that I had found the words.
For me, I really dislike it when something unpleasant occurs that I do not expect. Either when there is no certainty or whether I am actively certain...that the thing would not happen.
Part of my journey towards completing this apprenticeship has been in strategies that I have employed in managing my relationship to uncertainty. This is best described through the instances that I came up against this, and how I managed it.
Awards
In an ideal world, if I am to be given an award, I would be told ahead of time. However, this also must be inversible - if I do not win an award, I must also be told. Whilst any initial disappointment will be considerable, the suspense and disappointment would be much worse later on.
One year, I had reached the finals of a national telecommunications award. I did not know that I would not until the event itself, at which point I was not able to enjoy the evening. To avoid this experience, I resolved to mentally prepare myself.
In 2023, I attended two awards ceremony. The first was the Anglia Ruskin Student Union (SU) volunteering awards. I attended as I knew that I had won at least one award - up to that point, I managed to complete enough volunteering hours to collect a certificate at the ceremony. There was the certainty that I would at least come away from the event with what I came for, which tempered the uncertainty of whether I had been recognised elsewhere.?
The second awards ceremony that I attended was the STFC Apprenticeship Awards evening. As my apprenticeship was not related to early careers, I was certain that I was not going to get anything. Whilst meeting the other apprentices at STFC, I could also mentally prepare myself for other ceremonies where I would not win.
General advice that I would impart: find out how you respond to uncertainty, and expose yourself to it in a means that is somewhat accurate to the type of uncertainty that stresses you.
What does it mean to win?
One important lesson that I learned about mentally preparing for the uncertainty of the awards is to question whether the award is worth winning:
For example, in this scene from The Good Place, Eleanor Shellstrop has mentioned that she was the top saleswoman in a cold calling scheme to defraud pensioners. She mentioned winning the award to Chidi, as a means of defending her character.
A lot of people talk about winning, but rarely on what it is that they are winning. Winning does not pack as much punch if it's something unethical.
Though the uncertainty of whether or not I win anything remains, its impact is reduced. This can be though of similarly to grief, with the jar growing around the constantly-sized ball of grief.
What helps me is to ask the following questions of myself:
Specifically to me, I had anxiety about a prize from my university for the best student performance. After some reflection, I realised that the quality of my code is great but not of the same brilliance as others in my cohort (e.g. I am not as fluent in Git as I'd like, which I am working on). Whilst I prided myself on being knowledgeable in research and its application, as part of being a good student, the qualification also recognises high-quality code.
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In any case, I realised that my priorities were incorrect. In the brief instances of results day, I was more interested in comparing myself to others and competing in a Crufts-like game for points. However, away from these short flashes, I reflected that I had undertaken the degree apprenticeship to learn as much as I can - having this at the forefront, more consciously, has helped a lot.
Creating certainty
However, reframing an uncertain event in this way is not the only thing that has helped me.
Rather than focussing on uncertain events, it has helped me to plan certainties.
For example, when I completed my apprenticeship, I planned in events to celebrate:
With each of these, I knew that they were going to happen however I did. They motivated me to finish, given that I would have certain events to which I could look forward. I was motivated to do as well as I could in my endeavour, to amplify the positive impact.
Understanding the Myth of Sisyphus*
Albert Camus defined the absurd as the contradiction between man's search for meaning and certainty from an unfeeling universe that cannot provide it. This is central to the "Myth of Sisyphus", a text that grapples with this paradox.
It begs the question whether we should try to find certainty at all - how can we expect to find it? The Myth of Sispyhus presents an optimistic perspective on a lack of meaning, as it stresses that we can forge ahead with our own meaning.
However, this would require a great deal of mental fortitude - human beings are social animals, and our need for some certainty (e.g. my house will be intact when I return) is central to this socialisation.
* (I am by no means an expert. I read 'The Myth of Sisyphus' once, albeit a translation into English. I welcome any sort of peer review).
Getting through uncertainty
Returning to the 2023 SU awards, I had caught my car in a massive pothole three miles away from the venue. As the time got ever closer to the start, I remember feeling a sense of dread - that I did not know whether I would go. I had wanted to attend the SU awards because it represented a nice break from my studies (not to mention that I had recovered from a difficult group project, and other difficulties). In fact, it seemed more certain that I would have to return to my nearest garage in Ipswich!
However, not all uncertainty is negative - I met someone who had an amazingly positive impact on me round a fire pit that night. They inspired me to be a better person, being more present and mindful - even though we did not have many opportunities to meet after that, I was inspired because I knew that the world had people like them in it.?
Even an all-too-brief hour or so that around the fire with them, during which we simply talked like old friends, made the whole experience worthwhile.
They had studied education before being by the fire, and our conversation made me reflect on my own experience as an apprentice more deeply. This arguably led me to reflect on Wolsey's college, which I outlined in a series I rate among my best.
The uncertainties I navigated ultimately steered me around the fire with them, so I am more grateful for them than I expected as a result. Though I don't know if we'll ever meet again, as much as I would like to, meeting them has helped me towards peace with uncertainty - this comes from a concerted effort on my part to appreciate those present moments around the fire.
Andrew Bolt is a recently-completed Degree Apprentice, working for the Science and Technology Facilities Council and having studied for a BSc (Hons) Digital and Technology Solutions degree at Anglia Ruskin University. This article forms part of the #ThinkBIG series of articles about apprenticeships.