Post 25: The Impostor Syndrome

Okay, so I just wrote my last post mentioning the Impostor Syndrome, but realized that I haven't actually written about it before.

The Impostor Syndrome is a psychological phenomenon (not an illness or disease), whereby "people are unable to internalize their accomplishments" (thank you, Wikipedia.) It's oftentimes linked to the Dunning-Kroeger Effect, which I've posted about a little bit, here, right at the beginning of my blog. I've now convinced myself that the Dunning-Kroeger Effect is the positive, wonder-full closely-related flip-side-of-the-coin to the Impostor Syndrome, because when I'm feeling positive, and on top of my game, I really feel inspired and excited by recognizing that there is so much out there to read and learn and be exposed to, and so much that I don't know. Hundreds of years of other people's ideas and expressions and arguments and lessons and wisdom. It truly is an amazing time to live in, with the internet and interlibrary loans and blogs and journals, and being a part of academia. And then, when I'm feeling the full brunt of the Impostor Syndrome, all of that wonder kind of falls away, and instead those people or ideas who I admire, become unreachable, and become objects of terror and interrogation, because I might not be fully understanding them, or might be getting them wrong, and those are skivs that can be dug into my identity, my sense of being, and can be used as objects to prove that I don't belong where I am: that I am a fraud who doesn't deserve to be at this institution.

That is the Impostor Syndrome: that cycle of thoughts that tells you: You don't deserve to be in the program that you are, to have the position that you got, to earn as much as you do, to get the funding that you did, etc. And you feel like somewhere, someone is going to call you out for it, is going to embarrass you, is going to show the world that you really don't belong, and didn't, the entire time.
While discussing the sometime crippling tendencies for perfectionism in her awesome workbook for grad students, Laurie Waye employs the useful metaphor of the Cinderella Syndrome: "where you're at the ball (i.e. graduate school) but you don't really belong there. You're worried about being found out for who you really are..."

Reading on the Wikipedia page, I am not surprised to see that it was women (Pauline R. Clance and Suzanne A. Imes) who first began to do research on this phenomenon (their article was published in 1978), and showed that high-profile, successful women exhibited this phenomenon, believing that they were over-evaluated by others, and were not intelligent (Wikipedia).

Since then, a number of high profile people—not only women—have admitted to struggling with this phenomenon, including an actress and humanitarian who I highly admire: Emma Watson, who was recently named to be the UN Women's Goodwill Ambassador, and others like the formidable US Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor and the writer Neil Gaimon. Other common demographics of people affected by it include (surprise!) graduate students, the beneficiaries of affirmative action (who think that they are chosen because of these 'exceptions', instead of their skills or abilities), and generally, successful folks.

Now, the tough part is that there is no 'cure' or solution for the phenomenon. The best thing to do is to talk about it, and be aware of it. To identify it. I know that I am grateful that it was discussed and mentioned by the staff person from Counselling Services for the graduate student orientation that took place right before the official start of my program here at UVic. I had never otherwise heard of it before, and certainly never felt it as strongly as I have over the past few months, during undergrad. One suggestion was to write actively about one's achievements, and while I don't think of it that way, one of my motivations (when I was writing excitedly about the Dunning-Kroeger Effect) was to keep track of all the wonderful things I get to do, experience, be a part of, during this graduate degree. Some of that includes marvellous things that are celebration worthy, like receiving great funding, and attending amazing conferences, and getting to spend time with brilliant colleagues and professors and ideas.

So, we need to be gentle with ourselves, and supportive of others. We need to take the positive side of competition, which is to help us become better people, and in this case, budding academics. Cheers to positive learning!

Prelude to the Good Stuff

So I thought I'd start with a short introduction: an explanation, really, of why this blog. For one thing, this thought has been on my mind for a while: I am very lucky. Lucky to be in graduate school; lucky to have great funding (PICS 2 year master's fellowship, and SSHRC master's funding); so lucky to have a supportive supervisor, colleagues, a great workspace—the whole shebang; and a pretty awesome family to which I don't think I've communicated very well what I do at school here.

I hope also to use this blog as a way of keeping track of the many lessons and great advice tips I come across; already there has been a whole bunch of learning throughout this master's degree so far, and it's far from over. A few highlights:
- having not done an honour's thesis in undergrad, learning to widen my perspective on what a big research project looks like and how to design, undertake, and (hopefully soon) bring it home.
- that it gets a little bit lonelier to specialize: friends move away, start getting married, investing in long-term relationships, first-houses, and following their own dreams, wherever they take them
- and that I now, TA-ing my third class, really love to teach. This, after learning to cope with my fear of public speaking (somewhat) so that I can get into a creative space and thinking about teaching concepts and strategies like 'flipping the classroom' and being, in short, an effective educator.
- I really care about critical and clear reasoning, and improving my own skills in all such related areas, as I realize this will not only be useful for completing my master's and excelling in academia, but also for life in general.
- and I also really love the local and native plants, and the West Coast and Canada's most biodiverse province, so it's always a good time to share photos and give a taste of what really fills my world (expect photos of flowers and native flora strewn throughout the posts.)

I have also learned that there are an innumerable number of ways in which I have come to see the limits of my understanding. I think this is the doorway of breaking down the Dunning-Kroeger Effect, where through digging into my current project (more to come shortly), I have become the kid who climbed the generously-grassed hill (entered grad school), and has flopped onto my stomach to shimmy to the cliff-edge and see just how vast the ocean of knowledge is, and that by looking at my little square on that cliff-ledge, I have come to realize that I know so, so, so very little.

So, in part, this blog is for me, and in part, I hope this blog can become a useful tool for other grad students out there -  a small handshake to say that yes, you deserve to be where you are, and a head shake that no, you are not alone in your questioning, your insecurities, and the feeling (pressure) that you 'aren't getting enough done' (an idea that I feel I have really been struggling with recently). In part, I hope this may also become a sort of check-in point for my supervisor, as well, as I try to meet deadlines and finish up with this program. I also hope that this can be a touch-stone for my family, so that I can better share with them what I'm up to all the time.

So, for a quick summary of my research project (coincidentally, this is the summary of my research that I submitted to the SSHRC Storyteller's competition this afternoon):

Climate Change, The Mountain Pine Beetle, and Scientists: Understanding Rapid Ecological Change

For some, climate change means rising sea levels or a greater chance for the incidence of a 100-year flood. For British Columbia and its neighboring provinces, global warming, combined with historical forestry and fire suppression activities, has meant more climate suitable habitat, no more -40°C temperatures to kill over-wintering beetle larvae, resulting in an unprecedented mountain pine beetle outbreak over the past 15+ years.

                          Outside Vanderhoof, BC: 15 years post mountain pine beetle landscape. 

The mountain pine beetle is a tiny insect, about the size of a matchstick-head. Not a great flier, it relies on pheromones (chemicals) to communicate with other beetles, including when to swarm a healthy lodgepole pine (its preferred host). This tiny beetle is responsible for reddening mountainsides and valleys with millions of dead trees. It has now travelled higher up mountains, as far north in latitude as the Northwest Territories, and has marked jack pine tree-trunks with pitch tubes as far east as Saskatchewan. In other words, the mountain pine beetle is no longer simply a ‘BC problem.’ This insect has very much become the climate change poster-child of Canada.

My SSHRC research investigates how this incidence of rapid ecological change affects scientists’—our experts’— perceptions and understandings of these environmental shifts: what do they mean, and what can we learn from it? How does having an unprecedented event in both scale and geographic extent like the spread of the mountain pine beetle change their perspectives on ecological relationships, their ideas for the future, and the practice of science? What can the mountain pine beetle tell us about how research is done in Canada, and is there a ’best way’ to allocate resources made available by such a crisis? My research will feature their voices and ideas about our changing landscapes.  

Currently, I'm neck-deep in finishing transcribing my interviews that are the empirical basis of my research, and should be analyzing the transcripts I'm producing by mid-February.

                            Outside Vanderhoof: a forest regenerating, 15 years after the mountain pine beetle. 

I'm a Teaching Assistant for ES 341, which focuses on giving students a grounding in ecological restoration. I'm also an aspiring writer, and in my spare time volunteer for The Malahat Review, the Arbutus Review, and occasionally submit articles to The Martlet, UVic's student-run publication.

I am a community-oriented gal, and also enjoy organizing events that I think enrich and contribute positively to society. Two events I'm helping organize are coming up in quick succession: CONFORWest 2014 and a Clothing Swap.

Needless to say, I really do like to keep busy, and feel like I'm contributing to positive change in my communities as they vary by scale locally, municipally, provincially, nationally, and internationally. I am very fortunate in my position that I can contribute to all the environmental, social justice, and political causes I care about. In this way, this blog will be a skip through all the adventures that grad school and life really is: including writing stories, communicating science, undertaking research, learning, and offering lessons learned from my experiences and research. Join me as I bumble my way through this rocket ride.

It's the end of January (and coincidentally a good friend's birthday—Happy Birthday C!). Tip 1 that seems impossible to avoid to continually bump into: start early. If there's a deadline you know about, plan your time well. Unlike MattyB, we can't step back in time, so we'd better make the best of the current few minutes!

Copyright 2014 Heike Lettrari.