Today at the Grant Writing course, the trainer said, and I quote, “Imposter syndrome is something people develop during PhD, and it never stops. Academia is a place that continuously exposes you to the breadth of knowledge of several other people, making you realise how little you know.”

In the first year of my PhD, while striving to prove that I could handle the tasks involved in my PhD, I learnt that the PhD is a lonely journey.

In the second year, I learnt that many things will not turn out as I expect. My supervisor will sometimes not read every text of my paper (lol. Who would have thought?). Debugging my code will take longer, and approaching the point where I have the exciting results of my analysis will take forever.

I am in my third year of PhD and glad to announce that the imposter syndrome is real. I am bloody less confident of what I know. I do, however, think I know stuff.

“What do I know?” you ask. Well, the other day at a presentation, I was the only one brave enough to methodologically interrogate the research of the much-experienced presenter from Princeton University.

But hell, I sometimes feel confused, not so knowledgeable, and increasingly so.

Looking at the ones who have gone ahead of me, I think it gets better in the fourth year. There, you know better how much you have achieved during your PhD and can better objectively evaluate your standing.

For now, we keep ticking on.