From student to scholar: on facing imposter syndrome in academic life

Imposter syndrome describes the feeling that one's success is undeserved, a belief that any achievements are due to luck or external factors, and that others will eventually find out. Even those with qualifications, skills, and experience can feel like they are merely pretending (Bravata et al., 2020). Clance and Imes introduced the term in 1978, but it has since become part of a larger conversation in higher education. Parkman (2016) notes that in competitive, performance-driven academic cultures, imposter syndrome can be especially intense for early-career academics trying to meet research and publication benchmarks.