The Case of College Imposter Syndrome
Graphic by Téa Sklar
In college and especially high school, my family and friends could recount the hours of stress and tears that went into my work. My high school life was like this: weekends my head stayed buried in the books, my time after school was spent at the various clubs I couldn’t give less of a shit about, and sports I only did to show how “well-rounded” I was. I was an all-year round athlete by the way. Soccer, tennis, track and field; I don’t say these things to gloat, but to reminisce; I couldn't keep a schedule like that now if I tried. At Syracuse, I think I’ve joined two organizations: Girls Gains Lifting, which I have failed to attend this year, and Jerk, which I have not written for in the past few weeks. Whoops. Over the past few weeks of this semester I’ve become a burnout, procrastinating work, doing other things that require much less immediacy, or watching tv while I’m studying. This has never happened to me before.
What confuses me about my recent burnout is the reason why it's happening. In high school, I was much busier and concerned about getting into college. But now that I’m here, it's like my drive has disappeared. I should be like that same kid I was in high school and doing everything that I am capable of to get toward my goals, y’know joining all the news media, rising in the ranks and getting my name out there. But, I’m just too exhausted.
It wasn’t until recently when I was at a panel where I heard the term Imposter Syndrome. Now, this wasn’t the first time I had heard of it, my screen time is about 18 hours a day, so I’m on the internet a fair amount. But I think it was the first time I realized what's been wrong with me. I came to Syracuse a year ago, and I started by being extremely excited about the prospect of joining all the clubs. However, it was during those first few weeks where I started meeting people, where I realized that the talent in this college is immense. In my first journalism classes, COM 107 and COM 117, I formed relationships with the people I sat near or was paired with for projects, and hearing about their backgrounds in photography, cinema, and writing had me pissing my pants. I mean I had written for my school paper, but I soon realized in my classes that my journalistic writing style was all wrong.
I started doubting myself, my own perfectionism started working against me as I would start overworking to compensate for my lack of true experience. My imposter syndrome worsened, and I thought that if I joined clubs and proved myself then all these feelings would go away, but as weeks passed at Jerk, I found my burnout becoming worse. The articles I wanted to write were becoming a chore, and instead of communicating the problems I was having, I stayed silent; my articles would go from this week's story to next week's story, to will this story even be published?
This cycle of thinking hit me at the last Jerk pitch meeting of the year a week ago, I thought about how for weeks I had been working on the same article with no real progress made. I never communicated that I was struggling, or asked for help. I just drowned myself in other things, hoping maybe my “creative spark”, whatever that means, would come back. I felt like I would be a failure if I asked for help, which now I realize is dumb, but at the time I wanted to try to fix this problem on my own. With Imposter syndrome, an easy way to fix whatever is going on is to be your own advocate; force yourself to do things and accept the discomfort that comes along with it. Most likely, this would have helped me because god knows I love to talk. But the hardest thing for perfectionists to do is ask for help. I think by getting all my thoughts out on the page, instead of pushing myself deeper into this pit of burnout, is better for people like me. The people who don’t want to ask for help, who insist they can make it on their own. While I urge people facing this to ask for help and be your own advocate, I understand the struggles of simply not wanting to.
I don't believe that I’m the only person who thinks this way, but I may be the only person to write about it. College is stressful and takes its toll, and those of us who face the feeling of inferiority or lack of ambition feel it even worse. My hope is, if you are dealing with thoughts and feelings like I am, you know you are not alone.