Wikipedia defines Imposter Syndrome as "a psychological pattern in which an individual doubts their skills, talents, or accomplishments and has a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a fraud." I haven't heard of this until stepping foot into the information technology industry. It is prevalent everywhere, just open any IT related Twitter or discord chat and I'm sure you will find a handful of people talking about how he/she is experiencing imposter syndrome. In my first intro to cyber operations course, my professor spoke on the topic of imposter syndrome. He stated most of us experience it one way or another getting into this field and we need to learn how to cope with it. Later on, while taking a computational thinking course (which was my first class about coding) my final project was to make a simple IP address extracting script from a Wireshark output with Python and using no regex. I struggled for about a week and a half on this and came a day away from making the deadline. I will always remember on the last day before it was due I still had made no actual progress and deleted my last 5 attempts. Starting again from scratch with a day left, at first I was feeling frustrated at the project but then became frustrated at myself. "Maybe I can't do this, maybe I'm not cut out for this career change?" I kept having these self-doubts over and over until I came to a negative place.
While in this frustrated state I took a break and watched a documentary about flat earthers. The documentary explained a psychological effect called The Dunning-Kruger effect. Wikipedia defines this as "a hypothetical cognitive bias stating that people with low ability at a task overestimate their ability"(no offense flat earthers). In other words, it's when an individual believes he/she is an expert is a field after learning only a little bit of it. This effect sounded like a complete opposite of Imposter syndrome to me. Looking more into these two psychological effects, it is apparent that those who seek to gain knowledge, experience self-doubt much more so than anyone who actually lacks knowledge or skill. After experiencing this self-doubt and learning that there is a negative opposite effect, I decided that I should embrace this feeling. It is a driving force to learn more and keep pursuing an interest. In short, I think those who experience imposter syndrome should embrace it and be proud that they are not in the trap of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
In the end with my python program final, I was able to figure out a script that got me a 91%. It wasn't perfect but it didn't need to be. It was my first attempt at coding a project from scratch and my ability will only continue to grow as I learn more and more. Previously I mentioned that I made no progress from my 5 previous attempts. This was not correct because each failure is a step of learning that led me to figure out a solution.
I have three things I would like someone to take away from this. The first is that it is true that you will experience imposter syndrome in one way or another if you're getting into this field. I think I will continue to face this feeling for a long time and it is completely normal. The second thing is that if you are having this feeling, then embrace it. Feel empowered that you have this humbleness, it is what allows you to be open and continue to learn. My third and last point is to get good at failing. I'm now just learning that not everything will be perfect and easy even with the knowledge I’be been gaining. When a challenge presents itself that is too much, fail the best you can. What I mean by this is to not let the failure pull you down and remember you have gained something by trying.
As Thomas Edison said- “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
Imposter Syndrome > Dunning-Kruger Effect