The police barged in unexpectedly. While one of them used a flashlight to rummage through my book bag and makeshift desk, the other interrogated me about the items the rummaging officer found:
“Vocabulary flashcards? Copies of a multiplication chart! Two-column notes!”
“Pete. Come over here. Take a look at this. Brain Quest cards. 1st grade.”
The first officer peered down at me: “So you’ve been pretending to be smart for a long time, huh?”
I looked up with tears in my eyes. Speechless. Mortified. Petrified. Aside from being ashamed of these intruders calling me out on my intense study habits, I was embarrassed they saw where I lived.
“Hey, Pete. Check this out,” he incredulously gushed as he shined his light on my box of scholastic awards and trophies, “People actually fell for this! She actually tricked ADULTS into believing she’s smart.”
“We’ve caught on to you, Officer Pete commented matter-of-factly as he arrested me. “You’re not really smart. You just sit in here and study all the time. You’re being charged with being an imposter.”
Throughout my first two years at HLS, there was a vague sense that I was out of place. Everyone, except me, belonged here. No. Really. Everyone else really was supposed to be here…I, on the other hand, had just worked really, really hard to “catch up.” For my peers, this was the natural next step; for me it was a long-distance run, and I had finally reached the pack.
As if the weight of feeling like an imposter were not heavy enough, I also felt guilty. I was guilty of breaking my promise to the admissions office. At the conclusion of my admissions interview I was asked something along the lines of: “If admitted, what would be your principal concern?”
Perhaps it was a trap, but I gave an honest answer: “Well, fitting in. I don’t know how my background will affect my interactions…”
“Well”, she interrupted me mid-sentence, “I need you to know that if you are accepted, you belong here. You need to be confident, because you will be among people who are confident, bold, and think they’re right all the time. They will sniff out a lack of confidence…”
“Right. Right.” I responded verbally while fiercely nodding my head. Internally, I took a mental note: “Be bold. Be confident. Don’t let self-doubt get to you. Push away those fears of not fitting in or doing well enough. It’s all in your head.”
But little did I know that the weakness about which I opened up to the admissions office was deep. Too deep for me to uproot at a human’s simple command…
It took me a while to put my finger on the feeling, because it was so subtle and so vague. The scene described in the opening introduction never actually happened. Here at HLS no one ever screamed: “You don’t belong! Get outta here!” Even internally, I cannot remember a clear thought of: “I am an imposter. My cover will soon be compromised.” Hence, it was strategically crippling for this sense of inferiority to be like a nebulous, light cloud over me. If it had been explicit, direct, and “in your face,” I would have easily been able to apply my faith and bring those thoughts of inferiority under subjection to my belief in God’s love, goodness, and intentionality. However, I was not able to pinpoint the feeling until well into my second year at HLS, when I was reminded of a book I read prior to law school: Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg. Essentially, in Lean In Ms. Sandberg, the Chief Operating Officer of Facebook, encourages women to “lean in” to the metaphorical (and sometimes literal) table of business that is usually dominated by males. It encourages women to take on principal positions and leading roles in our careers. She uses part of the motivational book to explain what she dubbed the “Impostor Syndrome”: “This phenomenon of capable people being plagued by self-doubt has a name—the impostor syndrome. Both men and women are susceptible to [it], but women tend to experience it more intensely and be more limited by it.”
AH-HAA! Once Lean In and its explanation of the imposter syndrome came to mind, I was finally able to isolate one of the causes of the anxiety and sense of inferiority that hung over me while at Harvard.
Having isolated this “syndrome” that plagued my mind, I began to think back on my childhood experiences. Namely, being one of few poor, minority children in an elementary school in a middle-class suburb. Although I had only recently diagnosed myself, I realized that I had been plagued with this evil since elementary school. It wasn’t until law school that I was able to appreciate the power of what I believed, and consequently spoke, about myself since I was seven or eight:
“Angel, you’re so smart.”
“Nah,” I would respond, “I just work really hard.”
My kindergarten teacher encouraged my mom to have me tested for the school district’s gifted program. (Being classified as “gifted” meant being segregated from the rest of the class during math/science to receive advanced instruction; having “gifted” designated on your official school record; and practically speaking, being on a pipeline for a superior education.) By the third grade I began taking classes with the other “gifted” students. At this point, even at the tender age of 9, I remember having a vague idea that I was allowed to be in the gifted classes only by the skin of my teeth. There had been a mistake. Any day and the Smart Police would bombard my room; find that our living conditions were not like those of my gifted classmates; discover that I didn’t really “know” my multiplication tables, but I just spent hours memorizing them; and basically, uncover that I was an imposter—a hard worker masquerading as a smart student.
So, although the HLS admissions representative encouraged me not to submit to feelings of inferiority, it was too late. I had reneged on my promise; while at Harvard I was drowning in a sea of isolation and self-doubt. I was always thinking I would be found out. That my cover would be lifted. Someone was going to catch on to the fact that I did not really comprehend the hundreds of pages I read the week prior, but that I had sought out Black’s Law Dictionary and study aids to understand what the heck the judge was trying to say when he wrote this 100-year old opinion. My cover would be blown if someone were to ever find out that I didn’t always understand the assigned reading, and that I read for hours, or woke up 6am before class, to get a grip on the assignments. It would take just one cold call, one unexpected: “Ms. Everett, what was the legal reasoning in case XYZ?” for my identity to be compromised.
We all agree no one is perfect, right? I knew that premise. I really, truly believed the old adage: “Everyone makes mistakes.” But again, because the imposter syndrome was so unassuming, I unintentionally accepted its perception of my mistakes:
“Welp! Now they see the real you.”
“You said WHAT in class? Told you, you are not that smart. No one else would have said that.”
“How could you misspell that? On a LEGAL document, are you serious? Isn’t that what lawyers get paid to do?”
“SEE! Told you so. That’s the real Angel showing. You can’t hide for long.”
I walked the halls and sat in classrooms of HLS under a vague weight of anxiety and inferiority, fearing that the invisible Smart Police would come and shine the light on my shenanigans of hard work and relentless studying I harbored to keep up with the pack.
I write this article having conquered the Imposter Syndrome. When it tries to creep back in, I retreat to my conviction that having God’s approval and direction serves as enough validation for my place here. I remind myself that the admissions officer was neither simply commanding me to “fit in,” nor was she trying to force me to quiet feelings of shame, awkwardness, and self-doubt that would inevitably emerge. On the contrary, she was simply warning me. Encouraging me. Reminding me that despite the reality of my background and the reality of Harvard, that HLS’s acceptance of me was intentional, and I had something to offer as much as the next admitted student. Everyone here works really hard. Everyone here studies for hours. And everyone, even Harvard Law students, make mistakes…even legal mistakes …and they (i.e. the mistakes) do not invalidate our intelligence. We are not divine, so error is expected, and that is ok. Whatever you have been destined to do, don’t be fooled by the imposter syndrome. Everything happens for a reason, a purpose, and for your good. You are here on purpose. You are not an imposter.