I am an imposter

Two months have passed since I started my Ph.D. journey. And it has been a rollercoaster so far. I’ve experienced both overwhelming highs and lows and I’ve struggled with finding my place in the university and the scientific community.

I think it was last week when I started revisiting the thoughts that you’ll be reading in this post. I was walking on the Main Quad during rush hour, with hundreds of students traversing the quad to go to their next class. The thought of being invisible and tiny struck me again. In a sea of awesome students, I am but a single person who’s ultimate purpose in pursuing graduate education here is still unknown. And now, I’m back to feeling that I’m an imposter.

And it is quite difficult to fight the thought. I am studying in one of the most prestigious universities in the world, a top-ranking school in Agriculture and home to great photosynthetic discoveries way, way back. While I feel blessed to do my Ph.D. studies here, and I am grateful to the person who trusted me to do the research I’m doing, I still feel like I’m an outcast. I still get that feeling that I’m just pretending to be a capable researcher, but the fact is, I’m just nobody.

Hopefully, one day, faking my confidence and pursuing learning will lead me to light and make me realize that I am not an imposter.