On Imposter Syndrome, or What Are We Even Doing?!

With my transfer report coming up within the next month or so, things have been pretty stressful over here. Unfortunately I find myself not having fun poking around things in the lab, but pouring over drafts and corrections and trying to synthesize my transfer report*. So I figured this might be a good time to talk about imposter syndrome in academia – something that I suffer from a lot lately!

Imposter syndrome, for those who don’t know, is basically the feeling that you’re a fraud, no matter how many achievements you have. It is by no means only restricted to those in academia, of course, but I feel like it is quite common amongst graduate students and early career researchers.

In my opinion, the PhD (specifically the early years) is like academic puberty…you’re transitioning from a taught student to an “expert” of sorts, and the transition can be very awkward and weird! It’s easy to feel as though you’ve somehow cheated your way here at times. After all, I was just a student the other day! And now I’m giving lectures, presenting at conferences, answering questions from people whose work I’ve quoted in undergraduate papers – what the hell is going on?!

One of the best ways I’ve started to combat this feeling is by actually going through my drafts – yes, I am confessing right here that in the past, I’d skim through the comments of my drafts, if I even wrote one at all. Especially in my undergraduate years, I was a big fan of “one and done” papers – to some success.

But in the past year or so I’ve actually looked at the transformation of my drafts and lemme tell you – I can see my progress, clear as day. It’s slow, but I can gradually see myself getting more confident in my writing with each draft. And just having physical  evidence really helps me see that I am, in fact, achieving something.

Obviously imposter syndrome manifests in different ways for different people, but here’s my personal advice: go back to old drafts, old papers, whatever you have. Maybe its your masters dissertation you handed in just last year, maybe its your high school science paper. Compare it to whatever you’re currently working on – how far have you come? What progress have you made? Even if its the tiniest bit of progress, its still progress.

And if you don’t have written work to look at, try simply reflecting. Where were you last year? Three years ago? Five years ago? Even just last year I wouldn’t have believed you if you told me I would be presenting my work at conferences across the UK, or establishing myself as a science communicator on social media (although I’m still a baby at that!).

We’re not frauds! We’re learning and progressing and becoming the best we can be! Let’s give ourselves a break, shall we?

*For those who don’t know – a transfer report is basically moving from the MPhil to the PhD. In my case, it basically shows off everything I’ve done in this first year: literature reviews, methodology chapters, analysis of bones, and what I plan on doing for the next few years of the PhD.

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