1. I’ve been thinking a lot recently about imposter syndrome and academia. I know there are larger societal problems in 2020, but many students are struggling right now, and maybe some reflections will help. #AcademicTwitter #phdchat

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2. First, some background. I am a department chair and have been a full professor for a decade. By all standard metrics, I have been very successful. Yet I routinely grapple with imposter syndrome. Why is that?

3. I have a few ideas, though clearly these are based on my personal experiences - your mileage may vary.

4. First, academia involves development of focused expertise. By definition, that means that most of the people around you know more than you about a lot of things. That gives you the sense that they know more than you, period, and that maybe you aren’t as expert as you think.

5. This includes students and faculty. Every student I have ever mentored knew more than me about something. This is part of what makes academia so fun (working with and learning from smart people), but it contributes to those nagging doubts.

6. Of course, the flip-side perspective is also true. A student may work for a month on an analysis, and I notice a flaw in an hour. Or I can draft a paper in a fraction of the time. For students, this contributes to feelings of inadequacy.

7. Academia also has lots of quantitative metrics of “success”. Anyone who cares to do so can look up my number of publications, h-index, i10-index, and so forth. And if your “stats” are less than a peer, or someone more junior, it feeds into the sense that you aren’t doing well.

8. Of course, different fields are of different sizes, have different audiences, have different authorship customs, and so forth. So these can be apples to oranges comparisons. But people do it nevertheless. And this extends to getting fellowships, awards, and so forth.

9. On another theme, there are many unstated “rules” that govern academic success. No one in my family had gone into academia before, and I felt for a long time like other people had the cheat codes for success.

10. Whether true or not, if the people around you act like they know the system inside and out, and you don’t know it, it makes you feel like you may not belong.

11. Parenthetically, many people bring up the stereotypical arrogant academic as a counterpoint. Setting aside whether that sometimes masks underlying imposter syndrome, everything above can help explain that as well.

12. If you know more about something than anyone else, and you focus on that fact rather than the fact that they know more than you about something, it can feed into the arrogance. And if you know how the game is played, ditto.

13. I could go on. Big picture, graduate students, post-docs, and others are doing amazing things right now, especially given the pandemic. Remember how impressive you are, and that it is totally normal to feel like an imposter from time to time.

14. The key is to focus on yourself and your own development and success, and to remind yourself how far you have come and how much you know. Thanks for all that you do, now more than ever!

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