This is how I felt going through my university course. I knew I needed to learn a lot at the beginning but it felt like everyone was way ahead of me. This made

This is how I felt going through my university course. I knew I needed to learn a lot at the beginning but it felt like everyone was way ahead of me. This made me nervous to talk to anyone and it also made me anxious about my grades. I didn't want to come across as an idiot and therefore I started doing what you are doing, intense self study and keeping to myself. Two things came from this, one (a good thing), I pushed myself hard, got a good final grade and I learnt how to progress. Two (a bad thing) I never interacted with my peers and the stress at some points was unbearable. My advice (looking back at my experience), be honest, if I had just dropped my act and accepted that other people were ahead of me and stopped the measuring I would have found out that there were others that felt just like me and there were lots of people that were more than happy to help (I found this out way too late!). You will also find that the stress will be relieved and your days will become easier. Just keep up the self study and still have hard goals set. If you take this advice and things don't get easier at work - then I would take a long look at the environment at whether or not I would want to continue working in it.