'I dont deserve to be here': One postgrad student's musings on imposter syndrome

by Kate McAnelly 

I made my way through my undergrad teacher training at the UOCE Southland campus, in Invercargill (New Zealand), feeling like someone was bound to tap me on the shoulder at any given moment and turf me out of college for being a fraud. I made it out the other side with degree in hand, yet the feelings of extreme inadequacy persisted despite good marks and praise for my practice. Who did I think I was, calling myself a teacher? 

 
I completed my PGDipTchg last year and these feelings ratcheted up a notch. Not only was I continuing to be plagued with a complete lack of self-belief in terms of my intelligence, I also felt like I had to prove myself as a new graduate teacher. I was in papers full of experienced teachers, and if they didn't 'find me out' for my fraudulent masquerading as a teacher, my learned lecturers surely would. I got the PGDipTchg with credit, but told myself my chances of getting into the MEd were now toast because I was such a dismal failure. When the message popped up in December last year telling me I had, in fact, been accepted into the MEd programme starting this year, I was confused. Surely there was some mistake? 

Those old familiar feelings of inadequacy ramped up even more this year and begun to mess with my ability to get a good night's sleep. I would see Master of Education under the heading qualification in progress, there in black and white, and not be able to understand or believe it. Why hadn't I been found out yet? I was being assigned brilliant supervisors to oversee my research, and I was upset that these people I admired hugely were going to be the ones to discover I was just an imposter. 

About a month ago, I was up in Dunedin at the main UOCE campus meeting with my supervisors and catching up with other lecturers I had during my PGDipTchg year. I had remained close with a number of the lecturers. I was discussing with one of these lecturers how my supervisor and I had just submitted an abstract to co-present at the Inclusion Summit at the University of Canterbury in July, and how terrified I was that we were probably going to be presenting to people whose work I'd referenced so assiduously, names anyone who's anyone working in the field of inclusive ECE will know well. While I was extremely grateful for my supervisor for agreeing to co-present with me, I thought they would have to carry the discussion because in that sort of forum, surely to goodness, I'd get rumbled for being a fake and be sent on my way. 

The lecturer listened carefully to the torrent of angst flowing from my mouth, and when a pause in the conversation came, said 'Kate, have you ever heard of something called imposter syndrome? I think you have it'. We discussed it and its prevalence in higher education amongst high achieving, highly successful people who can't accept they are knowledgeable and worthy of the success they've achieved by virtue of hard work. Our conversation gave me much to ponder in the days following. 

So what exactly is 'imposter syndrome'? It's a term coined by clinical psychologists Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes in the 1970's to describe how successful, highly achieving people are unable to internalise their accomplishments, even when there's tons of evidence that they're doing well. Basically, for someone like me (and perhaps a few of you too), it's feeling like I'm not a competent, intelligent student or teacher, and that I'm just a big old fraud all round who is bound to be found out at any minute. There are three broad sub-categories in the manifestation of imposter syndrome - 

Feeling like a fraud – the thought that one doesn't deserve his or her professional or academic success, and that the people around them have somehow been duped into believing in their brilliance. There's often an underlying fear of being unmasked, found out or discovered to be an imposter, which causes a lot of anxiety. 

Attributing success to luck – the tendency to attribute one's success to luck or other external reasons, and not to their own abilities. People with imposter syndrome in academia might refer to a high mark for an assignment, or perhaps a well-received conference paper, as a 'fluke' or something they just got lucky in, a success they won't be able to repeat again. 

Discounting success – the tendency to discount and downplay success by saying things like 'it's not a big deal' or 'the assignment wasn't worth much', thinking you only got a good mark because the lecturer is an 'easy' marker, or having a hard time accepting compliments. 

Imposter syndrome isn't an all or nothing concept, in that you might be able to recognise some aspects of it in your own behaviour and demeanour, but not others. I see a lot of it in my own behaviour and demeanour. In the way I think I've somehow faked my academic competence and deceived the college into thinking I'm worthy of a place in the MEd programme. In the way I'm convinced I'll be revealed to be a nobody one day soon. In the way I often think of my good marks as being down to luck and not the hours of work I put into achieving them. In the way I've downplayed those good marks, especially because the lecturer concerned must surely need their eyes checked if they thought my work was of any merit! And especially in the way I have a complete inability to accept compliments on my achievements, brushing them off as I feel I don't really deserve them. 

However, I've discovered a number of ways to deal with these feelings of being an imposter as and when they crop up. Being aware of, and able to identify, those automatic thoughts and feelings like 'I'm an intellectual fraud' is a really useful first step. Questioning those automatic thoughts and feelings and trying to bring about some balance to the inferiority battle raging inside your head comes next, along with trying to understand, and I mean really understand, that you got your brilliant marks because you damn well earned them – not by chance, not because the lecturer was going easy on you – because you deserved them. But most importantly, seeking support from those around you who are on/have been on a similar journey to you, because a problem shared is a problem halved and who better to understand the sometimes dark complexities of the mind as you travel the postgrad road than those in the same boat, or those who have been there, done that, and got the t-shirt. 

And this is where we can all band together as a Postgrad whānau. Let us not feel so alone through suffering in silence.

Let's work hard and know our achievements are down to that hard work, not luck. 



Let's celebrate our successes and make sure we actually believe in them. 


Let's talk. 



[Images from Morguefile.co.nz]