>>100129I've struggled with feelings of inferiority a lot and picked up some tips and tricks how to deal with them appropriately. Sounds like something that could benefit you as well.
For better performance:
1) Understand
why you're learning the things you're learning. If you were a teacher, why would you assign this task? This should help you prioritize the right things. If you are in a phonetics class and the teacher assigns you to memorize how they are pronounced separately, it's probably not so important to drill in your head the singular sounds themselves, but to correctly pronounce words that have them. Is it easy for you to tell that the "th" sound in "think" is a θ, but the "th" in "those" is ð? Personally I can't tell the difference. Memorizing won't get you good results all the time, you also need to think about the why.
2) Look up stuff about the topics that are too difficult in your free time, too. A good specialist has information from all the uni-given sources and then some. I used to feel inferior to an engineering student because he was exceptionally intelligent, but he read additional sources for his classes: magazines, kept up with the news in his field and learnt new programming languages on his own in his free time.
3) Read about "brain fog" and see if it applies to you. You might be very capable, but if you have brain fog it makes it several times harder to properly roll new information around in your head until it settles somewhere. If it applies, the number one most important thing you should do to get rid of it is exercise (especially exercise that stimulates the brain - where you need to count, keep track of how many, how long, how much, eye-hand coordination and such). Don't be lazy and dedicate some time to this every day, nonita! I assure you, it will help.
For the feelings of inferiority to go away:
1) Your moid will always be inferior to you because he is a moid and his value depends on his skill. Know that in his mind, he is the one who should be impressing you with his skills, academic or otherwise. He's secondary to you, because your worth is inherent and his is conditional. Compete with women exclusively, because males have different priorities and expectations, and you'd be doing double work for the same reward. I know the desire to prove that you can do both and more, you definitely can, but why would you? A man who respects you will respect you whether your GPA is 2 or 4.
2) Academia is inbred with ideas, so as someone else has already pointed out - it's just how well you can regurgitate the rigid rules and how well you can wiggle yourself when it comes to logical reasoning. Memorize for the former, and apply performance method 1 for the latter. Also a good reason to not take grades too seriously, it speaks nothing of you as a person, just how well you picked up on what teachers want from you and your (usually) short-term memory for the exams.
3) Keep yourself busy with other things so all your worth isn't placed in how good of a linguist you are academically. You can be a mediocre linguist, but simultaneously a good artist alongside that. That way, you have a field to feel competent in and feel better measuring up to everyone else (not just your boyfriend).
