Academic Impostor Syndrome
by Justin Esarey
This is a little outside my usual blogging oeuvre, but I saw an article in the Chronicle that I really think is worth a read:
http://chronicle.com/article/An-Academic-With-Impostor/138231/
It’s something that strongly spoke to my experience as an academic.
Methodologists are often required to demonstrate the utility of our method by using it to critique existing research. But I think we should all try our best to assume that other researchers are smart, honest, and well-meaning people; that we are engaged in a collective enterprise to understand our world; and that when criticisms come, they come from a position of respect and with the goal of understanding, not to “one-up” somebody or win a competition.
I have no idea how empirically accurate that description is, but it’s the kind of science that I want to do and I’m sticking with it on the theory that one should embody what they wish to see in the world.
In my own field of ecology and evolution, there was a lot of discussion of imposter syndrome a little while back. See here for a bit of that discussion, and links to some very good posts:
http://dynamicecology.wordpress.com/2012/04/30/advice-for-grad-students-overcoming-the-feeling-that-youre-an-imposter/
Despite the title of the post, it’s not just aimed at grad students, and the broader discussion certainly involved plenty of postdocs and faculty talking about their experiences with imposter syndrome.