Academic Impostor Syndrome

I like working with people who aren't very smart.

There, I said it.

When I work with people who aren't all that, I feel competent, good at what I do, insightful, and a lot of other good things. But there are people out that who don't leave me feeling quite so warm and fuzzy. I'm not talking about the people who think they're so much superior to me and put me down - I can handle those people.  I'm talking about the more humble types who, who are just obviously so much more connected, more competent, more interested and more interesting, more engaged and more engating, and just plain smarter than I am.

I encountered one of those today. I was presenting something work related at a place this person runs. She was fabulous. She greeted and catered me, the visiting researcher. She discussed her site and her work in a way that shows she's passionate about what she does. And here I am, inside my stuffy little head, thinking "who cares". Then she talks about some other projects she's working on and it's just so clear that she has so much more... potential... than I do.

She's less educated than I am, but she's a more educated person, if that makes any sense.

And so, I go back to look at my education. You know, I did it the easy way. I did the shortest Ph.D. you can get in the country in my field - and I finished it a full year ahead of schedule. I often felt, as I went through the program, that it wasn't a "real" Ph.D.  I was a superstar there. The other students struggle and don't finish on time. I finished early with double what I needed.  I ain't no genius though. It was a remedial Ph.D.

I moved away from that area, to a place where the Ph.D. takes years longer to complete. Sometimes I'm okay with everything, because while I know my program was *ah-hem* below par, I was such a superstar in the program that I know I could have done a longer, harder program, and all it really would have earned me was more years of my life sunken into school, more debt... I did the right thing by taking a legitimate, recognized, fast-track. It is a recognized degree, from a high-ranked recognized university. I'm just not so sure it should be high ranked and recognized.

Until I meet people like the one I met today. Today, I feel like an impostor. I'm not the smart, educated, connected person I'm presenting myself to be. I'm a fast-tracker.

Connectedness. That's the one that really gets me though. It's not really one you learn, either. A second and a third Ph.D. would not teach me to be more connected. It's just who I am. I live in my own little world that isn't quite so attached to the world around me. It works for me, I like it, I belong here, it's all good.... until I meet someone like the woman I met today.  She has the..... connectedness... I feel like I should have, to present myself legitimately as Dr. Zil. I'm searching for another word to describe what it is I'm missing, but I can't find one.

And that, dear Internet, is another thing I will have to grapple with as I make the transition I have ahead of me.

Onward.