In college and in high school there is a common misconception that when someone asks for help on a given task or assignment, he or she is stupid or weak. Unfortunately, this is a fairly widely held belief, and many students can fall into this trap during their tenure in college. Yes, this does occur a lot in the classroom setting, but the origin of this idea comes from normal everyday life. In fact, everyone has been groomed in his or her lives to inadvertently believe that this is true. This is because when we were younger when someone was asking for help, it was generally because we did not understand how to do something. From an early age most people connected the idea of asking for help with the negative connotation of being awful at a particular thing. Because of this, many people will not allow themselves to seek help in fear of being looked down upon by their peers. Students who fail to ask for help are ultimately missing out on the possibility of doing better and can quickly fall into a pit of problems. 

There are some dangers that can arise from not seeking help. The first is obvious, the student may not know how to complete his or her assignment. This is the worst problem to have. If someone does not know how to do something, how would he or she do it? Another problem students can have is that they can become complacent in their work. An example of this is a student who has a passing grade in his or her class, but he or she is barely sliding by. They understand the assignments and how to do them and are giving a good amount of effort. Although all of this is true, they are not working to their maximum potential. Because of an irrational fear of getting help, they are settling for a lower score than they could have achieved. 

On the other side, students who regularly go and seek help generally do better on assignments and work to their maximum potential. A student does not only have to seek help when he or she does not understand a concept. Like I previously stated a student may understand have done an average job on something, but if that he or she goes and, for example, has a teacher read over their assignment and make edits, he or she can tweak it to fit the professor’s needs. The teacher could provide extra insight into the topic at hand, and the student could come up with an idea they would have never thought of on his or her own. Honestly, though, it can be a lot easier than that too. Even just asking a friend for some advice on a problem, or having them proofread the essay, can drastically improve the quality of work that someone turns in. All in all, the truth of the matter is fairly simple. On average students who go to external sources to help themselves out, generally succeed more than those who do not.