Imposter Syndrome and Mental Health

The Fall 2022 Semester has been my first semester in college. While so far, I find that the transition has not been as terrible as my pessimistic mind imagined, the one of things that has negatively affected my transition to college is impostor syndrome. Impostor syndrome is a term used to describe the feelings of self-doubt and incompetence a person may experience, especially when in a new environment. 

When I walked into my first-ever college class in September, I immediately felt out of place. The professor was bringing up all sorts of terms and events that I didn’t know occurred. At first, I blamed it on the fact that I took a 300 level course my first semester (I still don’t advise this!). However, when the other freshmen started to join in with the professor and answer his questions perfectly, I immediately felt myself shrinking. If everyone else could answer the professor’s questions correctly, there must be something wrong with me due to my inability to do so. I spent that whole hour and fifteen-minute class in fear of what college entailed. However, once stepping out of the class, I started talking to a group of girls who also had no idea what was going on and validated my feelings of confusion.

Since my first college class, my feeling of impostor syndrome has alternated from “100% impostor” to “I kinda got this!” daily. But, I know whenever I do feel like an impostor, my mental health greatly suffers. When I feel like an impostor, I begin to doubt almost everything I do and shy away from any work I have to do for fear of failing. However, I think it is important for everyone to know that you should never let impostor syndrome take over you. Always remember that you worked hard to get where you are now, no one “made a mistake” of letting you succeed, and you didn’t just “get lucky.” As a First Generation college student of color, I often feel this way too, but everything will be okay.