Late-Onset Imposter Syndrome
You’ve probably heard about imposter syndrome at some point in your life. As college admissions get more and more competitive, and higher education gets more cutthroat, imposter syndrome is a common occurrence for people who were once big fish in small ponds, and suddenly find themselves to be small fish in big ponds. Take, for example, someone who goes from valedictorian of their small high school, to struggling to pass their Organic Chemistry class in a big public university. Are they not qualified, or not smart enough? NO. They simply aren’t equipped with the necessary skills to face these new and different challenges, and have ample opportunity to build these tools in the coming years.
Not to toot my own horn, but I’d never experienced imposter syndrome. In fact, the toxic, competitive environment my high school fostered over-prepared me for university, and I breezed through those four years of undergrad. People weren’t comparing grades after every assessment, pass-failing gym just to up their GPA by 0.1 points, and I wasn’t anywhere near as stressed as I had been during my junior year of high school (AP exams had taken over my life).
And then.
I somehow found myself in graduate school — more as an escape from the toils of a 9-to-5 than a real passion for academia. Not a recipe for success, but I wasn’t expecting just how challenged I would be. I’m still not sure what mix of factors has made graduate school so difficult for me, but I’m guessing it’s a mix of my 2-year break from academia working alongside the most self-deprecating people I’ve ever met (veterans), the rigor of my new institution, and the fact that graduate programs are exceedingly different from undergraduate programs. I loved my time working with (some) of these vets, but the constant stream of: “I’m stupid,” “I don’t know how to read,” and “I’ve got too many concussions to use my brain” really bled through to my personality. In the first couple months at my program, I was consistently putting myself down when introducing myself to new people, whether it was about my academic chops or otherwise. And what I put out into the world, really came back to bite me in the ass.
I do want to iterate that I once considered myself somewhat of an academic powerhouse (note: sarcasm doesn’t translate over text as well as it does in-person). My last year of college, I was awarded my department’s award for “senior judged most outstanding in academic achievement in Linguistics.” I had just landed a fellowship I’d been applying to for two years. I won the university’s policy brief contest two years in a row, beating out fellow undergrads and graduate students. All this to say I was pretty confident in my academic abilities.
Maybe it’s age. I don’t have it in me to pull all-nighters studying anymore.
Maybe it’s money. I’m working almost full-time (nobody tell my department, it’s “not allowed”).
Maybe it’s the different field. I went from a STEM-y social sciences degree to very humanities-oriented classes.
But at the age of 24, I found myself struggling with imposter syndrome for the very first time. A professor I sat down with for office hours once told me that undergraduate students are rewarded for good ideas, while graduate students are rewarded for good arguments. I have to get used to building out arguments, supporting my assertions, writing lengthy papers, and working around the clock. And most importantly, I need to get used to going beyond the bare minimum, which worked exceedingly well in the militarized environment of my professional office.
I’ll get there. I know I will, because I have to.
