Tufts Blogs

I am no stranger to the infamous “imposter syndrome.” I’ve had the unfortunate reality of being a victim of this crippling feeling. It usually comes about in different forms, but for me, it was a forceful humbling. All my life, I was known to excel. I was used to being at the top of my class, being actively involved in my school and community, being the teacher’s pet, and receiving accolade after accolade, certificate after certificate. When I got my acceptance to Tufts during the fall of my senior year, I felt ready to conquer the entire world…or so I thought.

One of the first reality checks that I remember being so jarring to me when I first stepped foot on campus was finding out that people actually went to private schools. In my mind, I had always imagined these as unforgiving places where students had no freedom. I bet you can only imagine my surprise when I found out about boarding school…how naive. I caught on quickly that there was quite a difference between my public school education and those private schools, and it wasn’t long before I realized the difference in the access to resources that those students had versus myself. 

Since my first year, I had created this imaginary competition in my head where I felt a constant need to “catch up” with my peers on campus because I always felt like I was 10 steps behind. There was an insatiable drive to work twice as hard in everything I do on campus so that I could be on equal footing with my classmates, but that drive was fueled by nothing but the “syndrome.”

When most people discuss having imposter syndrome, it’s often in the context of them not feeling empowered enough to take advantage of opportunities presented to them because they feel that they are not worthy enough to be in such positions. I’m not sure what happened when I got picked, but my syndrome must have gone a bit rogue. Having imposter syndrome did not hinder me from taking advantage of anything. Instead, it forced me to over-exert myself. It puts this incessant pressure on me to constantly prove myself, not only to others, but to myself. I kept on taking on more and more roles and responsibilities and I didn’t even realize how thin I was spreading myself. 

However, the most valuable lesson I learned during this time is how lucky I am to have had an amazing team and community of people behind me that I work together with. As I made more attempts to prioritize my well-being, I realized that in as much as I wanted to be a resource for others, I also had lots of people who could be resources to me. From the Africana Center staff to my TCU exec team, and my amazing BSU e-board, I am grateful that I work with amazing rockstars who look after me and help share the responsibility of the work that needs to be done. It’s through these people that I was able to have someone holding me accountable to myself, and I was able to finally understand the importance of delegation and what it means to be a service leader. These are all life skills and tools that have not only helped me balance my workload at Tufts but will also stay with me well into my career and higher education.

Slowly but surely, I am starting to realize that I’m not the only one who has to do it all. Part of the wisdom that I found comes with growing and being a decisive adult is being able to trust myself to trust others. This simply meant being honest and upfront with myself and realizing that while the things I do may look good on my resume, it does not define me. I realize that I need to stop creating a culture of competition in my head that does not truly exist in my everyday interactions. In real life, people do not see your resume before they see how kind you are, your intelligence, and the care and concern you have for others. There is simply no need to sacrifice your well-being by trying to fit four years of experience on a 1-page PDF document that will not be looked at for more than 30 seconds, not especially when there are still decades of experience left to write an entire book. Know this, and know peace— everything will be just fine.