Has anyone else experienced this? I feel slightly embarrassed just posting in here, not an academic (yet). Went straight from A levels at a very academic school where I could never really compete with most of the others in my year group (possibly relevant, it affected my confidence hugely) onto BA degree, graduated from that last summer and went straight onto MA. Missed a 1st on BA degree by 1% and felt like an utter failure. I've known I've wanted to do a PhD since my first year, not so much that I wanted to do a PhD but that I knew I wouldn't be ready to give up my subject at the end of a BA. I'm in humanities, so not really applicable to careers outside of academia. I thought the MA programme I applied for would be a compromise of sorts, and then my dissertation supervisor last year suggested I think about applying to do a PhD with them. I realised at that point that it was what I desperately wanted and applied, and mentally prepared myself for working part-time throughout the whole thing- funding in my field is extremely hard to get.
Earlier this month I found out I'd been awarded funding. To say I'm over the moon is a huge understatement. Lots of others on my MA programme applied for PhD funding, none of them have been successful. I was quite shocked by that. All year I've been feeling like I don't really know what I'm doing with the MA, although just had results back that suggest otherwise. But there are lots of students on the programme who I feel are streets ahead of me, more knowledgeable, generally more intelligent, who didn't get funding. I really did think it would be them, not me, and I feel like a total imposter. I'm worried once I start they'll realise they picked the wrong student and that I don't really know what I'm doing. I'm excited to start properly once I've finished my MA but at the same time I feel as though the whole PhD world is still venturing into the unknown, if that makes any sense. No one can really tell you how your own PhD is going to be structured, I get that. I mentally prepared myself for missing out on funding to the point that now I have it I feel guilty that I'm the one who got the opportunity, which I know is absolutely ridiculous.
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I've been awarded funding but I can't shake imposter syndrome.
11 replies
IisaIambe · 17/04/2017 18:39
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