What is imposter syndrome? Healthline describes it as self-doubt and personal feelings of incompetence in a field regardless of experience [1]. The engineers over at freeCodeCamp describes it as the feeling of being a fraud in doing your job, of which 70% of people experience [2]. This is a problem in any field.
Most definitions boil down to a sense of inadequacy, often which is imposed by comparing oneself to others or being unable to perform a task without using other knowledgeable sources. Unfortunately, where imposter syndrome strikes most is asking for assistance where normally asking for help is respectable action. This is counterproductive and can lead to worse imposter syndrome feelings almost like a positive feedback loop.
As a computer science major, I do feel a lot of work done in this industry could be classified under imposter syndrome. Just recently I couldn’t debug a rounding error without assistance from a professor. Additionally, I will often refer to Stack Overflow when trying to adopt best practices for some actions like reading in files and writing secure code. Many algorithms are well-established that to not use them would be detrimental to performance. Many mistakes occur that tired eyes find hard to find and additional help is required to solve. Not knowing every language library in existence may have one ask questions on Stack Overflow on how to best start scripting complex actions like sequence aligning DNA. There are endless reasons why one may have imposter syndrome, but many people in top-level positions experience this as well.
Ethan Urie from Coding Dojo had six thoughtful methods for reducing imposter syndrome that I found particularly interesting [3]:
- Accept that learning is a forever process and that your knowledge is not limitless.
- Embrace challenges as learning opportunities to expand your knowledge. Rather than dwell on your current inabilities.
- Think deeply about all your successes, past and present.
- Ask colleagues, co-workers, and managers their thoughts on your performance, possible areas for improvement, and manageable goals.
- Adopt new learning styles for better understanding.
- Develop future career goals so you can plan to meet expectations.
All of these were suggestions that I have used in the past and continue to use in the present with one additional key point – not waiting till the last minute to start major projects.
Sources:
[1] Imposter Syndrome: What It Is & How to Overcome It (healthline.com)
[2] What is Imposter Syndrome and How Do You Overcome it? (freecodecamp.org)
[3] Programmer Imposter Syndrome: 6 Ways to Get Over Yours (codingdojo.com)
