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Claiming you have "imposter syndrome" seems to be a popular way to convey modesty or self deprecation. I suspect that many people that claim to have it actually

by kylec 8y ago

Claiming you have "imposter syndrome" seems to be a popular way to convey modesty or self deprecation. I suspect that many people that claim to have it actually don't.

joeyaiello 8y ago
As someone who definitely has imposter syndrome, the enlightening part of this post for me was that YOU are also the horse jockey. In this light, it's important for me to recognize that you could easily see me as someone falsely claiming imposter syndrome, even if I know I'm not. Not sure it helps with the imposter syndrome, though...
- jobigoud 8y ago
  You might have Imposter Imposter Syndrome Syndrome. The fear of being called out for faking Imposter Syndrome.
ghostbrainalpha 8y ago
Think about it like this.... A surgeon might go to school for up to 12 years to acquire all there advanced knowledge. It seems like after all that time, there jobs should be so complicated that it would be beyond the understanding of a layperson. But when I go to the doctor I expect that person to be able to explain what is wrong with me, and what they are going to do to fix it. So even with 12 years of education, there isn't REALLY a significant barrier of understanding between the average adult an the doctor. Now take a I.T. worker who has a 6 month degree from a technical college. He may be able to set up an intranet for the office. But could he explain the difference between a local network, and the wider internet, how the data is processed, and what a webpage is made of, in a way that a layperson could really understand without prior knowledge? Programming quickly takes people into the realm where intuitive knowledge is of little help. Its very easy to get lost, and even to a programmer who does PHP, certain things with JavaScript can feel like magic. What I'm saying is that it is a rough environment, and feeling Impostor Syndrome is probably really common, and should be expected in this field. I think in many ways it gets worse the more advanced you become in a specific domain.
- beagle3 8y ago
  > So even with 12 years of education, there isn't REALLY a significant barrier of understanding between the average adult an the doctor. I apologize for saying this, but this kind of statement smells of Dunning-Kruger. You only feel that way because the doctor works hard to make things understandable for you, and a significant part of his training is in the direction. How much do you think the average adult would understand when the doctor says something like "I suspect a B-cell mediated paraneoplastic disease (not a T-cell one, mind you), possibly affecting your NMDR receptors? If that's the case, surely a 5-methyl perdnisolone (or maybe a 6-methyl one) will provide some help by modulating antibody generation. An intravenous human normal immunoglobulin is also likely to help in this modulation."? Instead, the doctor is likely to say "You have an autoimmune disease. We have a cheap-with-side-effects treatment, and an expensive-with-less-but-possibly-not-covered-your-insurance one". Just like the IT guy would say "one works within the office, one works across the world, and there's a gateway between them".
  - ghostbrainalpha 8y ago
    That's a fair point. My argument was too much of a strawman. But I still think that the impostor syndrome is a real problem in our field, and that most people are not faking it.
  - kthejoker2 8y ago
    I think your example actually proves the point. Everything your doctor said has been known and codified in medicine for close to 100 years. So while the specific definitions may be missed, it's still followable for a lay person, because it's connected to concepts they get (cell, disease, antibody, intravenous, maybe even receptors.) If you asked an average adult to translate that sentence, I bet it would come close to your doctor translation, minus the side commentary on costs. Certainly a doctor in another field, say, a podiatrist or even just a first year resident, can follow along with what the immunologist said. Whereas software is such a vast body (pun intended?) That nothing translates. DevOps interns, analytics architects, experience designers, and black hats have entire worlds of jargon to decode. But people pretend all the time it's all just software and if you're good at Angular you'll be good at embedded computing or if you're good at data modeling you can pick up machine learning.

by kylec 8y ago

Claiming you have "imposter syndrome" seems to be a popular way to convey modesty or self deprecation. I suspect that many people that claim to have it actually don't.

joeyaiello 8y ago

As someone who definitely has imposter syndrome, the enlightening part of this post for me was that YOU are also the horse jockey. In this light, it's important for me to recognize that you could easily see me as someone falsely claiming imposter syndrome, even if I know I'm not. Not sure it helps with the imposter syndrome, though...

jobigoud 8y ago
You might have Imposter Imposter Syndrome Syndrome. The fear of being called out for faking Imposter Syndrome.

ghostbrainalpha 8y ago

Think about it like this.... A surgeon might go to school for up to 12 years to acquire all there advanced knowledge. It seems like after all that time, there jobs should be so complicated that it would be beyond the understanding of a layperson. But when I go to the doctor I expect that person to be able to explain what is wrong with me, and what they are going to do to fix it. So even with 12 years of education, there isn't REALLY a significant barrier of understanding between the average adult an the doctor. Now take a I.T. worker who has a 6 month degree from a technical college. He may be able to set up an intranet for the office. But could he explain the difference between a local network, and the wider internet, how the data is processed, and what a webpage is made of, in a way that a layperson could really understand without prior knowledge? Programming quickly takes people into the realm where intuitive knowledge is of little help. Its very easy to get lost, and even to a programmer who does PHP, certain things with JavaScript can feel like magic. What I'm saying is that it is a rough environment, and feeling Impostor Syndrome is probably really common, and should be expected in this field. I think in many ways it gets worse the more advanced you become in a specific domain.

beagle3 8y ago
> So even with 12 years of education, there isn't REALLY a significant barrier of understanding between the average adult an the doctor. I apologize for saying this, but this kind of statement smells of Dunning-Kruger. You only feel that way because the doctor works hard to make things understandable for you, and a significant part of his training is in the direction. How much do you think the average adult would understand when the doctor says something like "I suspect a B-cell mediated paraneoplastic disease (not a T-cell one, mind you), possibly affecting your NMDR receptors? If that's the case, surely a 5-methyl perdnisolone (or maybe a 6-methyl one) will provide some help by modulating antibody generation. An intravenous human normal immunoglobulin is also likely to help in this modulation."? Instead, the doctor is likely to say "You have an autoimmune disease. We have a cheap-with-side-effects treatment, and an expensive-with-less-but-possibly-not-covered-your-insurance one". Just like the IT guy would say "one works within the office, one works across the world, and there's a gateway between them".
- ghostbrainalpha 8y ago
  That's a fair point. My argument was too much of a strawman. But I still think that the impostor syndrome is a real problem in our field, and that most people are not faking it.
- kthejoker2 8y ago
  I think your example actually proves the point. Everything your doctor said has been known and codified in medicine for close to 100 years. So while the specific definitions may be missed, it's still followable for a lay person, because it's connected to concepts they get (cell, disease, antibody, intravenous, maybe even receptors.) If you asked an average adult to translate that sentence, I bet it would come close to your doctor translation, minus the side commentary on costs. Certainly a doctor in another field, say, a podiatrist or even just a first year resident, can follow along with what the immunologist said. Whereas software is such a vast body (pun intended?) That nothing translates. DevOps interns, analytics architects, experience designers, and black hats have entire worlds of jargon to decode. But people pretend all the time it's all just software and if you're good at Angular you'll be good at embedded computing or if you're good at data modeling you can pick up machine learning.