Monthly Archives: April 2014

Imposter Syndrome Workshop with Professor Alexes Harris

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Last week, Professor Alexes Harris of the UW Sociology Department discussed ways to combat imposter syndrome with us during one of our lunch-time workshops. Prof. Harris shared her own struggles with imposter syndrome as well as techniques she continues to use to overcome it. Below are some key points and suggestions from the discussion that resonated with us chemistry graduate students. Thank you to everyone who came for your excellent questions and participation!

– Develop a support group of your peers. Find people with whom you feel safe sharing your concerns and struggles. You will probably find many of your peers are dealing with the same issues as you and also feel like they are imposters. You will gain a sense of belonging and strength from your support group, as well as valuable advice and insight.

– Ask your friends/support group for a confidence boost when you need it.  Let them know exactly what you need and when. For example, you may want an (honest!) compliment before an important presentation or exam to remind you of your strengths and calm your nerves.

– Seek out people with a positive outlook and don’t let yourself be brought down by negativity. Politely minimize your interactions with negative people.

– End the self-doubt and guilt today! Promise yourself to not allow these unhelpful emotions to affect you. After all, they are only emotions, not facts.

– Give yourself time to decompress and relax, but most importantly, don’t allow yourself to feel guilty about it! You deserve (and need) at least a few hours a week to do something for yourself that you truly enjoy. Don’t feel guilty about the work you’re missing. Don’t be embarrassed about what you enjoy doing, no matter what it is (even trashy TV).

– Make a list of your goals and reward yourself when you complete them. Breaking projects down into small tasks will help you complete the larger goals. Perhaps make a board of post-it notes so that finishing a task requires the physical motion of removing the post-it note. Congratulate yourself for finishing even the smallest tasks.

– Regularly remind yourself of why you are here and what your end-goal is. Use your end-goal to motivate you to finish!

Jessica Wittman, WCS-UW Treasurer

Meeting recap 4/1/2014

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Here’s a review of some topics we discussed at last night’s member meeting. A full list can be found here on the WCS-UW Google Drive.

1. The Managing Up workshop with the graduate school was a great success, and Sarah is working on a recap/resource to distribute (via our mailing list and blog, but also through the department). Joan and Scott are also adapting MIT’s Postdoctoral Mentoring and Advising Toolkit for grad students. Using the toolkit will involve meeting with your advisor to go through a worksheet and have a discussion that clarifies your goals and expectations. Joan and Scott will send out the toolkit soon with more details for how to use it. We hope to have an event later this quarter where people can discuss their experiences using the toolkit and how to make it more widely used in the department.

2. Our next event will be a workshop on impostor syndrome with Professor Alexes Harris from the sociology department. This workshop will tentatively take place at noon on April 23rd, location TBD. More details will be posted soon.

3. This summer, we’re having a book club! Meetings will take place during lunchtime, probably every other week. We’re looking for ideas for science-related and/or women-related books. No particular preference for fiction or non-fiction, but a collection of essays or short stories might work well. Add your ideas to the brainstorming document on the WCS google drive, and we’ll vote later in the quarter.

4. Our budget includes funds to bring in one out-of-town speaker per year. We’d like to decide on a speaker and invite them this spring/summer for the inaugural WCS-UW Lecture this fall/winter. Add your ideas for speakers to the brainstorming document, and we’ll discuss and vote on which to invite at a future meeting.

5. The WCS blog is always looking for more content – upcoming events of interest, recaps of past events, reflections on articles or papers. Just register or log in via the links on the right-hand side of this page, and we’ll authorize your account to post entries if it isn’t already set up.