We're scholarship recipients. We're the winners of awards and trophies. We're top of the Dean's List. We're in almost every honor society on our campuses, we're at the top of our classes, we're in the honors programs and the accelerated classes and the graduating early list and the two majors and a minor. We have high GPA's and scoring records and mentors who believe in us. We're students, athletes, people who have accomplished more than average.
And we feel like fakes. We feel like our accomplishments aren't real, like we have somehow conned our way into the high places we've found ourselves. We await the day when someone discovers us and recognizes that we're not supposed to be here.
It turns out, this feeling is pretty common, and it's known as 'imposter syndrome.'
First described by psychologists Suzanne Imes, Ph.D., and Pauline Rose Clance, Ph.D., in the 1970s, impostor phenomenon occurs among high achievers who are unable to internalize and accept their success. They often attribute their accomplishments to luck rather than to ability, and fear that others will eventually unmask them as a fraud.
-American Psychological Association
Basically, some people who are hardworking and intelligent have a difficult time accepting that their successes are because of their own merits. They see their accomplishments as a result of luck or accident rather than anything legitimate. While these feelings are most common in difficult graduate programs, where students are selected for learning and research they may feel less than qualified to participate in, the effect isn't foreign to undergrads, either.
It can be facilitated by a number of factors; being female, an ethnic minority, or growing up in a household where succeeding at academic or athletic tasks was an emphasis raises the chances of feeling like an imposter later in life. The feeling can be debilitating when combined with symptoms of anxiety and fear.
The important thing to know is that you're not the only person who feels this way. Being highly successful raises your chances of not feeling like you deserve what you've accomplished, and many people report these 'imposter feelings.' Doubting yourself is normal, but letting those feelings of doubt control you isn't.
