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A part of a whole

You’ve all probably heard “impostor syndrome” discussed at some point on campus. The story goes like this: As Princeton students, we see the ridiculous accomplishments of our peers firsthand on a near-daily basis — national awards, startups which earn multi-million-dollar investments and groundbreaking research seem almost the norm. Naturally, many of us feel inadequate comparatively. “How did we get here?” we ask ourselves. “I’m nowhere near as accomplished, smart or talented as anyone else in my class.”

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Those who try to dispel this notion typically do so by explaining that this feeling isn’t a unique one. They bring up studies to show that it is common to feel this way, like the oft-cited paper which found that up to 70 percent of people have worried exactly about this at some point in their lives. They explain that everybody brings something unique to the community and that even the students who feel most helpless on campus are here for a reason. They tell us, in short, that we’re all in this together, and that your loneliness and fear of missing out are not things that you’re dealing with uniquely.

This line of reasoning is all well and good — it’s obviously nice to know that even if we’re suffering alone, we’re not alone in our suffering. However, there is something else we should also keep in mind whenever we try to deal with these self-conscious nightmares: those who suffer from this toxic self-image are almost without exception seen by many of their peers as the very image of that success themselves.

Obviously, everyone views themselves and their place on campus differently, and there is no one-size-fits-all response to the “syndrome.” However, this exact approach has helped me put my own self-image issues into perspective — and if it worked for me, it might help others on campus as well.

Like many students, I came onto campus believing that my own admission to the University had been, if not a mistake, at least more generous than I deserved. I’m part of the 4 percent of the student body who was not in the top 10 percent of his graduating high school class. I also had no grand vision for my life or even a particular direction I wanted to go in terms of major or post-college career. As I received rejection notices from almost every on-campus group I applied to or auditioned for, the thought of my own inferiority continued to eat away at me.

I’m not really sure what changed, but at some point during my freshman year I suddenly realized that almost nobody had any clue I was dealing with any self-confidence issues at all. My friends and acquaintances didn’t see me as anything less than a competent, hardworking Princeton student. I remember feeling shocked that I’d manage to “hoodwink” so many of them. What’s more, other students whom I saw as incredibly smart, talented and motivated confessed to me around this time that they were suffering under the very same inferiority complex. I was stunned — how could these people think they were anything less than completely qualified to come here?

It was at this point that it hit me: Not only are we unjustified in thinking we’re the only ones who are pretending to fit into the campus community, we’re not even “pretending to fit in” — we are fitting in. We’re passionate about so many different things and eloquent about such particular topics that what might be mundane for us is revolutionary and astonishing for somebody else. We might think we’re “impostors” because we can’t do some difficult thing that seemingly all our friends can do, but chances are we’re taking another difficult thing we can do incredibly well for granted.

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Of course, we do bring up this corollary sometimes — Dean Rapelye’s remark that the admission committee “doesn’t make mistakes” at a frosh week speech comes to mind — but if we are to make everyone here feel their place on campus is deserved, we need to talk about it a lot more. I won’t pretend that the overarching campus culture, one so focused on achievement and success, can be easily dismissed. However, in the flurry of exams, meetings, projects and grunt work in which we almost always find ourselves mired, we could use a little more affirmation. It doesn’t require much to make a meaningful difference: the occasional compliment or bit of positive feedback from the people that we respect, trust and admire can go a very long way. After all, no matter our GPAs, extracurriculars or social networks, we’re all Princeton students for a reason. But sometimes it helps to hear someone else say it.

Will Rivitz is a sophomore from Brookline, Mass. He can be reached at wrivitz@princeton.edu.

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