Unmasked: Imposter Syndrome in Graduate School

In my freshman year of college, my friend and I auditioned for an improv team. I got on and he didn’t, and I could never shake the feeling that it should have been him. He was quicker, funnier, and he fit the group better. I’d just been better-prepared for auditions because I’d spent most of the day prior obsessively watching Whose Line is it Anyway? I felt like I’d tricked the team into letting me on at the expense of a more deserving candidate. Feelings like these are common, though they’re rarely related to something as low-stakes as improv comedy. New jobs, new responsibilities, and new academic environments can all provoke the feelings of self-doubt and professional illegitimacy that we call imposter syndrome—especially if you’re stepping into an environment that doesn’t accommodate your identity. Women, people of color, and the LGBTQ+ community suffer imposter syndrome more than others when the institutions they are stepping into—including universities—were designed for straight white men.

The effects of imposter syndrome can spill over into our professional and personal lives. They can manifest as over-preparation or, ironically, procrastination—prompting you to self-sabotage or maintain an unhealthy work-life balance. In these and many other ways, imposter syndrome can stunt your professional growth while damaging your mental health.

If these symptoms sound familiar, there are steps you can take to mitigate them. Research suggests that just giving imposter syndrome a name can weaken its hold. Try talking to your friends, colleagues, and advisors about your experience. You might be surprised by how many talented people who are way too amazing to have an ounce of imposter syndrome say, “Me too!”

The second thing that you can do is a rhetorical strategy: stop deflecting compliments. I’ll admit that I struggle to do this. Whenever someone praises my work, I usually do my best to redirect that praise to the nearest person, place, or thing. (“Oh, you think this article is good? Well, I have to give most of the credit to my laptop. It really did most of the work.”) Redirecting compliments might seem like a humble thing to do, which can feel good momentarily. But when you externalize your accomplishments, you give yourself less evidence to draw on when you're trying to convince yourself that you belong in a space. So try just accepting a compliment when it’s given. You might find that you feel better, and the person who’s been trying to tell you “Good job” for several months will breathe a sigh of relief.

The third thing you can do is to ask people for their opinion of your work. Usually, other people have a more realistic opinion of your work than you do. Reach out to your friends and ask them what they think. This might seem daunting at first, but here’s how I think about it: I would never publish an article that I hadn’t shown to my editor, because I know that when I get too close to my work, I lose sight of things that would be obvious to someone else, simply because they are someone else. Talking to your friends is just applying that concept to a different sphere of your life.

This article has run on too long already, but I’ll give you one last piece of advice, and I’ll wrap up the story I started in the beginning of the piece. Remember five-hundred words ago when I got on the improv team, but my friend didn’t? Well, my friend auditioned again the next year, and this time he got on the team. And you know what? He did fit the team better. He was quick, and funny, and he brought things to the table that I didn’t. But I realized that I brought things that he didn’t, and that every member of the team brought a style or perspective to comedy that no one else on the team could match. I saw that it’s important to fit—to some degree—within a group, but it’s also important to bring new perspectives, to expand the definition of what that group is, and that just because you don’t feel like you precisely match the prevailing norm in your space, it doesn’t mean there’s been a mistake.

(For more information about imposter syndrome, check out Dr. Mika Galilee-Belfer’s Graduate Center workshop starting this spring.)