Imposter syndrome is a phrase that many people in academia are uniquely familiar with. The feeling that maybe you aren’t smart enough for your major or that you were accepted into your college by mistake is fairly common in these spaces. For me personally, I had always had an interest in engineering and knew that I wanted to pursue it, but I was confronted with a rude awakening during my freshman year as a mechanical engineer. What if engineering just wasn’t for me?
Rose Clance and Suzanne Imes coined the term imposter phenomenon in their 1978 study regarding how high-achieving women often “maintain a strong belief that they are not intelligent; in fact, they are convinced that they have fooled anyone who thinks otherwise.” They describe reasons why this phenomenon is highly present in women, usually involving societal stereotypes and familial pressure, and in the STEM field, this pressure is often intensified. I know that in my case, it was always apparent that I was one of the few girls interested in engineering, making me question my belonging, and this feeling was not aided once I was accepted to Georgia Tech, where conversations around affirmative action amplified my doubts.
Besides the societal pressures around being a woman of color in the STEM field, I also found myself doing worse in my math and science classes while succeeding in social sciences and literature. Not only was I not enjoying the coursework that was foundational to my major, but I was bad at it.
I started to feel out of place around my peers and began to doubt that I was qualified to be an engineer after I graduated. I felt that if I couldn’t “overcome” a physics class or personal doubts, I would be better off switching majors to cater to my academic strengths. This idea is not uncommon, as highlighted by Rosaling Gill and Ngaire Donaghue and defined by them as the “hidden injuries of academia.” The stress was discouraging me, and the only advice I was offered was individualistic self-help.
However, many of my feelings changed when I took the course on engineering ethics. It was a social science class that combined all of the things I enjoyed and had a passion for. I was able to write, identify problems in the engineering process, and review case studies that involved analyses only an engineering professional could perform. From here, I knew the direction I intended to go with my degree. I was not the hands-on woodworking girl boss that I had convinced myself I needed to be as a woman in engineering. Instead, I was better at design, programming, and risk analysis. This process of discovery was not easy, but it was very worth every minute.
The psychological and societal aspects associated with imposter syndrome are hard to identify, defy, and sometimes understand. However, one solution on a larger scale may be to retract from individualism. Imposter syndrome is often and most notably associated with isolation, which can fester irrational feelings of self-doubt. Building community and exploring different avenues related to your passions are valuable tools for finding your place and contributing to the constantly adapting world. It is okay to feel like an imposter, and you are not alone, but your individualism is how you present new perspectives to your field, not your isolation from it.
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