
MIT students open up about stress - danso
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/03/16/mit-students-open-about-stress/dS61oA5tiKqjvVsJ5VZRAL/story.html
======
nugget
MIT alum from the early 00s here. MIT was a stressful place. Much of that
stress was self-imposed, and in an environment full of ambitious, intensively
competitive over achievers, it can start to create a negative vibe. Turns out,
this was good preparation for real life in the competitive fields that many of
us chose.

The MIT administration at that time, to their credit, let students do pretty
much whatever they wanted - take time off, re-take failed classes, reschedule
exams, get special accommodations when needed, whatever. If you asked for
help, they helped you. Lots of career admin and support staff who would bend
over backwards to make miracles happen. I have never before or since
encountered a more supportive administrative environment and it's that
experience that will endear me to the Institute forever.

~~~
hkmurakami
Do you know what the treatment of students with mental disorders was like?

I'm appalled at how schools like Harvard and Princeton [1] (my alma mater)
treat students with psychological challenges (effectively kicking them out)
and am wondering what MIT is like in that regard.

[1] I understand their logic that the student is a thread to their own health
and other students' well being, but their heavy handedness is revolting to me.

~~~
Thriptic
> I'm appalled at how schools like Harvard and Princeton [1] (my alma mater)
> treat students with psychological challenges (effectively kicking them out)

I'm currently at MIT now as a grad student. The notion that MIT is kicking out
students who have mental health problems is a common refrain I hear from
undergrads; the thought process being that MIT is trying to limit the on
campus suicide rate by driving people out. I have even heard people say they
suspect that medical shares psych records with the administration without
their permission, which is completely untrue and illegal. I can't speak to
whether MIT actually kicks people out for mental health issues (I doubt it)
but the fact that this is even a commonly held belief is deeply troubling and
counter productive.

I love MIT, but they need to get their shit together and be more transparent
about their process in dealing with people who have mental health issues.

~~~
madcaptenor
Those rumors around medical sharing psych records with the administration were
around when I was there (undergrad, class of '05).

------
Anechoic
This article perfectly summed up my experience at MIT.

As the article hints, the competitive nature of the student body is a double-
edged sword - it helps push you further than you think you're capable of, but
it can also push you beyond your breaking point. In a lot of cases, it's a
fine line.

To any MIT students reading this:

1) You deserve to be there. Really.

2) You are not alone (read Pepper White's "The Idea Factory" if you don't
believe me).

3) Asking for help is not a sign of weakness. It's a sign of strength.

4) Failing is not the end of the world.

5) Unless you are going to war or face a diagnosis of a terminal disease,
everything else after MIT is easy. It gets better.

Please take care of yourselves. Take a break, decompress, have a little fun.
The world is a better place with you all in it.

RIP Fes-Mike
[http://tech.mit.edu/V113/N3/martinez.03o.html](http://tech.mit.edu/V113/N3/martinez.03o.html)

~~~
bootload
@Anechoic, I'm sorry for your loss.

~~~
Anechoic
Just for full disclosure, I wasn't close to Fes-Mike, but we lived in the same
dorm (New House, I was New House 3, he was Spanish House 2 floors above my
room), but we crossed paths a number of times in the halls and he always made
time to wave and greet me. I was/am friends with people who were close to him,
and the devastation they experienced when we all learned what happened was
unforgettable. And to cap it off, some friends and I had to talk a classmate
out of committing suicide a little while later.

Overall I enjoyed my experience at MIT, but there were a few soul crushing
moments in my time.

~~~
bootload
_" I wasn't close to Fes-Mike, but we lived in the same dorm"_

close enough.

------
hharnisch
It's not just MIT, it's pretty much any college with a 4 year engineering
program. Almost everyone of my classmates took at least an extra semester or
summer classes. 2/3 of the Freshman class dropped out (most of them to
business school). A few schools have switched over to 5 year programs. Not
everyone is cut out for an engineering degree and that's perfectly fine. Yes
it's hard, but when you find that one thing you fall in love with you never
give it up... That's when you graduate.

~~~
pokpokpok
engineering school environments can be very toxic. I think that for the most
part it's possible to cover their amount of content in 4 standard years, but
there needs to be changes in the structure of constant bewilderment and test
taking

~~~
paganel
> engineering school environments can be very toxic

I still have very intense school-related nightmares from time to time, even
though I'm now in my mid-30s. I decided to drop-out in my last year of CS
school, but before that almost any joy of attending my school lectures or
studying for its exams had been killed off inside of me (luckily enough for me
I discovered PHP and Python during my student years in my free time, which
gave me back the joy of building and discovering things).

------
ef4
Class of '03\. I certainly saw a lot of classmates under unhealthy levels of
stress. But to add some counterpoint, it's _not_ universal.

I think the biggest source of the pain is not MIT itself, it's the way many
high schools -- even "good" ones -- fail to prepare students. Learning for
mastery is very different from studying for the test. You can get straight A's
in high school just studying for the test, so unless some outside force or
quirk of personality drives you to work for mastery, you never learn how.

That won't cut it at MIT. So a lot of people discover to their horror that
they never actually learned how to master hard material, and they have
catching up to do.

I felt well prepared, and I certainly wasn't the only one. Which is actually
one of the sources of the stress: the students who are struggling can look
around and see others who are not.

~~~
madisonmay
I think part of it is also the big fish, little pond --> little fish, big pond
phenomenon. When high school teaches you to define yourself as intelligent,
academic, and driven and then you're placed in an environment where everyone
else has developed a similar set of character traits and amassed a similar
collection of academic achievements, I think students suffer a bit of an
identity crisis. All of the sudden very key components of one's character are
the norm, and the transition is far from easy.

------
choppaface
Also went to a tech school with similar problems. Depression is an infection
of the student's motivation and reason; it's a fixation with the thesis that
one is destined to doom. I think the main problem here is that school admins
often want to yank problem students for everybody's safety rather than effect
policy change that improves livelihood. The latter requires being good at
politics, and the leaders who are good at politics usually spend most their
time raising money and opening opportunities for the students who aren't
struggling. When the chancellor gets involved like this, the admins have
failed horribly.

My senior year I took fewer classes and exercised 5x more than ever. I was the
happiest I had ever been and had my only straight-A year. I'd advocate tech
school admins adopt at least two changes:

1\. Professors rarely share stories of their own failures as well as stories
of students who failed. The classes should cover not only the consequences of
doing well (i.e the key ideas and contributors to the topic) but also the
consequences of doing poorly. _Evidence and analysis of failure helps debunk
convictions to hopelessness_

2\. "Work-life" balance can be very difficult to achieve in college for a
variety of reasons. MIT requires students to pass a swim test, but this is
hardly a mandate that students maintain a reliably supportive extracurricular
(e.g. sports, art, community involvement etc). Pass-fail should be replaced
and/or complimented with a requirement to commit weekly hours to an alternate
activity so that students diversify themselves.

Pass-fail can help, but there's a ton of value in having brutally rigorous
courses (even if they inspire inordinate competition). It's not useful to make
the programs softer but rather make students aware of the realistic (and
certainly non-gloomy) consequences of not getting As.

------
nicholasdrake
i went to lse and the environment was supremely unsupportive. i think there
are two fundamental problems with elite universities 1) because uni degree is
a sorting/signalling function consumers have limited power. there is no other
consumer product that i can think of where the consumer has a bad experience
and that reflects on him not the producer's product 2) the misalignment of
incentives, where profs towards research not teaching. i think the solution is
to separate learning and signalling into two independent markets and allow
market forces to act on them... there is definitley a zero-sum element to all
this where people will always be stressed/over-worked as they compete,
nonetheless i do think learning these university mathematics subjects can be
made an order of magnitude more interesting/addictive.

~~~
_xander
Woah, fancy bumping into an ex-student - on HN no less. Do you have any
survival advice? Something you wish your younger self knew? Exam season is
approaching...

~~~
nicholasdrake
haha what's your degree? i was pure economics with a focus on econometrics..

~~~
_xander
Ah - I'm qualitative. Studying Government

~~~
nicholasdrake
i only did one essay module in my entire time at lse (psychology lol) and i
hated having to learn all the references haha so no advice. how are you
finding lse? it's funny how the most social place on campus is the library lol

what brings u to hn? u a programmer?

~~~
_xander
Nah, I wouldn't call myself a programmer. I'm just 'technically curious' and
enjoy the conversation found on hn. I might try and find work in tech
consulting or security later on. References can indeed be a bitch, although
you can get away with just a name and date for the exams. I'm enjoying LSE -
although studying here has meant very different things at different times. My
first 4 or so terms were a bit too social and I'm now taking the work more
seriously (and finding it's somewhat fun). I'm definitely in a bit of a work
bubble at the moment, so the library is totally my social hub.

~~~
nicholasdrake
cool cool. yeah hn is great for a certain type of perspective on the world
that it's hard to get elsewhere.. i suppose it's the hacker mentality lol

well this is kinda random but my best friend and i are looking to apply to yc,
our idea is 'A new asset class: Human capital. By paying for a students
university education who in return give back a percentage of their annual
income (probably developing world) we allow investors to make long-term bets
on specific industries and countries.

Anyway our first draft of our yc application is here , it will be great if you
can take a look and give some feedback...
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224487](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224487)

~~~
_xander
Yup I’ve given it a look-over. Coincidentally, a friend is also applying to
YCombinator later this year so I’m aware of the process.

Let’s compare Seldon to the financing structure of Make School (see:
[https://www.makeschool.com/admissions](https://www.makeschool.com/admissions)).
It seems to me that your idea has three unique selling points: 1) it can cover
the cost of going to any university, 2) % repayments are lower and last much
longer and 3) student repayments become a tradable asset class. This has pros
and cons. Pros: students have total control about where they want to study,
return can be much higher and more kids get an education. Cons: students are
incentivized to make expensive choices, education is commoditized, return is
much slower (you might not break even for decades) and ‘human capital’ (as an
unavoidably opaque financial product) is high risk. I think your biggest
obstacle will be overcoming volatility and opacity – you’ll need to prove that
the candidates you finance will provide good return on investment. What is it
about Seldon that means they can offer a student loan a traditional Chinese
bank cannot? Maybe adopt some of the strategies Make School and YCombinator
use – a rigorous (and prestigious) application process, guidance, relationship
building, sense of community, commercial nouse ect. I wouldn’t sell the idea
as a cold-hearted asset class at the start and I certainly would change the
name – it undermines the true value of your project. Make human capital a
little more…human? Besides, tradable asset classes only really emerge once a
financial product is big and established enough to be traded.

Other points: • 2% seems too low? (I’m not a numbers guy) • This business
would not work in the UK (~50% of students never pay back the full amount they
borrow…so no financial incentive to use Seldon) • Top US schools usually cover
all their students financing needs – so not too much of a market there unless
you want to grab higher-risk candidates. (MBAs are the BIG exception –
probably some good opportunities there). • Highlight who you both are - your
past achievements and work (because it’s good). • Take your private contact
info off of the website (it’s in the public domain, yo). • I like the basic
idea – but you need to be more conscious about the fact you’re dealing with 18
year olds and not, say, crude oil.

~~~
nicholasdrake
thanks xander this is great feedback. hit me up on facebook if u get the
chance
([https://www.facebook.com/DrakeNicholas](https://www.facebook.com/DrakeNicholas))..
me and my friend actually spent 4hours last night completley redoing our
application, answering the questions concisely has been really
challenging/clarifying our thinking (but in a good way!), so what u saw is a
little out of date...

nonetheless in addition to what you said i would point out one more advantage
for students (probably the biggest one) which is repayments are dependent upon
your situation (because it's a percentage of income) so if you're 'unlucky'
and can't find a job or only a low-paying job you pay less - which is good if
you are a risk-averse/poor student..

in terms of the cons, i actually think hte aggregated income streams are
likely to be very stable.. despite it's equity structure we see it more as a
fixed income product than a vc equity product (stable but lowish ~5% returns).
the moral hazard is an interesting issue that we hadn't thought about much - i
suspect the larger issue what not be in their university choice but rather
their post university choices... currently faced with debts students would
look to find a high paying job immediately, whereas with our instrument they
might travle the world care free knowing they don't have to pay anything
unless they get a job? in terms of becoming a tradable asset class that is
very much a long-term potential. we could end up trying to be originators for
asset backed securities but right now our thinking is it's better for us to
actually invest the money ourselves and get returns ourselves. the opacity
issue is interesting - opacity from whose perspective? it mihgt only be a
problem if it's traded on markets right?

in terms of proving returns - at this stage we can collect data on graduate
incomes and estimate returns but of course the proof will be in the pudding.
our selection process for the students will almost entirely be delegated to
the universities ie.. if you can get into the best university in india we'll
fund you

i think the big positives which your analysis missed (and actually we're most
excited about) is not the student side but the investor side in particular we
think that long-run income streams are a much better proxy for
country/industry success than betting on a specific company in that industry
(what buffet calls trying to 'pick the winners'). for example suppose your
bullish on chinese software as an industry... what is a better long-term bet?
the very risky (although higher reward) vc bet of picking a particular chinese
software company or sending 100 of the brightest chinese students to study
computer science with the assumption that if the chinese software industry
does well so will employees in that industry. furthermore, this will bring in
a lot more capital to big risky capital-intensive projects and through
tranching out the risk will enable much more investment and ultimatley
innovation in our societies...

re: 2% yeah it may be without going into the numbers lol 2% requires average
annual income to be 11x cost of university. in america if uni costs $30,000
that means we need incomes to be more than $300,000 which even with the fact
we're hand picking the smartest students and the fact you have future economic
growth (and inflation) over 35 years to help you out it doesn't seem like a
good investment. in china though the cost of the best 4 year uniiversity
(accomodation + tuition fees) ~$3,000-$4,000 so it seems very reasonable that
average incomes coudl be 10x that (and we find that the data supports that)...
obviously from an investors stand-point a higher than 2% interest rate is
better but we're not sure how much students will accept so we're currently
testing that (at the 2% level) with our chinese version of hte website and
asking for interested students to email us..

i think it doesn't work in the uk because financing is readily available and
cheap. in the us the story is a little different where if you don't qualify
for free tuition (which the poorest students do) there can still be a credit
constraining aspect to university choice... i think mbas and masters could be
a real opportunity as you point out, because masters/mbas are more optional
but can lead to a big iincrease in income for the student.

haha yeah we've reworked the who we are section, no point trying to be modest
lol!!

haha yeah i forgot about that, i suppose adding my facebook just makes things
worst right lol?

~~~
_xander
Take a look at Qifang
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qifang](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qifang))
which was the efforts of another LSE student to tackle the Chinese student
loan market.

~~~
nicholasdrake
yeah i managed to find some of his stuff on youtube... seems like it was
pretty marginal idea with benefits being an aggregation of software
streamlining of traditional lending + some career advice + job search
functionality
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2Ls_ZcQM80](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2Ls_ZcQM80)

------
thanatosmin
MIT classes are individually quite hard, but I also find many MIT undergrads
simply try to do way too much. Students frequently sign up for twice as many
classes as one should, volunteer in two or three labs at once, or volunteer in
three or more organizations. Success during high school and college admissions
is largely based on quantity over depth, which is poor preparation for actual
college and life.

P.S. I don't mean to blame the students for the consequences of these choices.
I think the administration could help by providing a clear picture of success,
and providing better services. I just think this is a source of stress outside
of individual class difficulties.

------
roflmyeggo
My buddies and I experienced similar situations, albeit not at MIT, but at a
private US D1 University as we pursued our dreams of medical school.

Luckily we basically threw in the towel one day and said it wasn't worth the
stress anymore. We learned the importance of Pareto's Principle, Parkinson's
Law, and a good nights sleep.

The crazy thing is our grades remained unchanged.

These were great life lessons that we learned that I wouldn't trade for the
world.

Although I chose not to pursue medical school, both my buddies are in their
first years and they constantly witness similar experiences to the article
above and our initial undergraduate experiences, regardless of the schools
that their classmates graduated from - MIT included.

Meanwhile my friends are doing very well in graduate school and continue to
have just as much time as during our undergraduate years.

I hate to say it, but if it wasn't MIT, it probably would have been something
else for these kids.

Hard Work != Productivity

~~~
iolothebard
Work smarter, not harder.

Figuring it out though can be the difficult part.

~~~
pizza
Any specific advice you might have figured out?

~~~
iolothebard
Personally, take the sure thing over the big bet.

In baseball terms, round the bases with singles instead of always swinging for
the home run.

Also, don't marry someone that you'll have to give everything you've ever
earned to get out of your life.

It's hard to summarize all my life's experiences. I tried very hard to learn
from my parent's and other's mistakes. I'm not a failure, but I'm not
retirement wealthy either.

Best advice is read a lot of writeups on failed startups more than successful
ones (if that's your goal). You learn more by seeing where people could have
done better than by studying those that for the most part got lucky (yes they
worked hard too, but sometimes timing, connections, location, etc. doesn't
work out).

If you're looking toward just being successful in your career, that's a
different line of study (how to win friends and influence people, etc.).

If you'd like to have an actual discussion, shoot me your email. I'd meet the
criteria for failed startup founder (I'm on #7 or 8 right now, too lazy to go
review how many failed I've had :-)

------
WalterBright
I attended Caltech, which is an equally high pressure school. But being around
lots of smart and highly motivated people made for a great deal of fun, too.
There were always interesting conversations to drop in on, and amazing
projects people were working on just for fun.

Yes, we got pushed, hard. But it is amazing how much one can learn when
pushed.

~~~
xvedejas
Unfortunately the Caltech administration over the past four years hasn't made
things easier. Banning benign traditions and kicking people out of their
houses for no reason doesn't help with the stress levels.

~~~
WalterBright
I graduated over 35 years ago, and nothing stays the same. But I'd be sad if
it was materially different.

------
pgbovine
This is a topic I've thought a lot about ... here's a strawperson proposal
that might incite some discussion, though it's by no means a panacea:
[http://pgbovine.net/undergrad-course-
limits.htm](http://pgbovine.net/undergrad-course-limits.htm)

~~~
nicholasdrake
i think this is a good proposal, zero-sum competitive dynamics means that
people are always going to work really hard, but with your course limit idea
at least those competitive dynamics won't be directed towards taking lots of
modules...one problem is that universities feel like they need to compete with
each other in terms of how difficult the modules are and how much they teach
their students (even though employers don't really care)..

i think one solution ironically might be to have much less holidays.. right
now in the uk the top universities (cambridge and oxford) have two 8 week
terms of learning a year, which means all the extra-curricular, social life
and academics are crammed in these very compressed periods of time... compare
this to tsinghua university (in china) where terms are 17 weeks long and
weirdly that means everything is more chilled out because things are more
spread out.

------
lordnacho
Do problem sets count for grades at MIT?

I did engineering at Oxford, where we had problem sets every week as well. I'd
try hard, but not because there was a grade that counted. There would be a
2-on-1 tutorial for each set, and you really don't want to be the guy who
didn't make an effort.

On the other hand, if something was simply too hard, we didn't let it stress
us out either. I remember emailing a tutor at 2am once and telling him both
students found it way too hard and needed more time. Got a response 5 mins
later saying no prob.

As for impostor syndrome, you need a healthy confidence. Naturally there are
people who are smarter than you, but equally when you're at a world class
institution it's because someone decided you are world class. And they had a
lot of people to choose from, most of who are doing quite well at less
prestigious places. Where they learn the same stuff.

You also shouldn't worry about rank. Only one guy get the top prize, but
everyone can understand the subject matter.

~~~
thanatosmin
Depends on the class. They're usually less than tests but not insignificant.

------
rajeevk
Here is an interesting comment from Andrew S. Tanenbaum(a famous author on
Operating system and Networking)

Did you experience culture shock going from M.I.T. to Berkeley?

Oh my goodness. Yes. It was so strange to be in an environment with people
having I.Q.'s below 150 and where it wasn't necessary to study 12, 13, 14
hours a day, seven days a week just to keep up.

Source:
[http://www.cs.vu.nl/~ast/home/faq.html](http://www.cs.vu.nl/~ast/home/faq.html)

~~~
henshao
I like this other comment more..

"Nobody likes M.I.T. People respect it. I respect it. But like it? Does anyone
like taking a drink from a fire hose? I am still in awe of the place."

------
jmorrison
Old VI-3 geezer from the late 70s, early 80s here - the time when the EECS
faculty tried to handle their over-subscription problem by (unsuccessfully)
imposing their own, separate admission requirements and flunking out a
significant fraction of EECS wannabes into other majors. Had an advisor who
tried to get me to join the Armed forces instead of stay in school. Watched
the Dept deny tenure to the only EECS prof to actually teach us and treat us
as human beings.

Certainly makes those calls/emails from the MIT full-time alumni fundraisers
feel, well, surreal.

------
reuven
I went to MIT, and graduated in 1992. A well-known saying at MIT is "work
hard, play hard" \-- meaning that you're going to work like crazy to do well
in class, and then when it comes to extracurriculars and sports, you're also
going to work like crazy to win.

The positive side is that in such an atmosphere, you're always pushing
yourself to the limits. You can learn a great deal, and you can accomplish a
great deal.

The negative side is that it creates unhealthy expectations -- not necessarily
from the MIT administration, but from the students themselves. If you're not
acing your classes and running an extracurricular and also playing an
instrument in your spare time and doing top-class research, then you're
obviously a loser. If you're sleeping eight hours a night, then you're
obviously a loser.

Anyone who goes to MIT (or another top-ranked university) is used to being
_the_ top student, or one of a handful, to whom everyone points and says,
"Wow, they're amazing." And so to go from always being at the top to feeling
like you need superhuman abilities just to avoid being classified as a loser,
is very tough.

I'm one of those students who consistently failed math tests during freshman
year. I remember very well calling my parents, crying on the phone. This was
the first time I had failed anything, and to fail a _math_ test of all things
was just unheard of.

But then I went to the math department's tutoring room, and found that a huge
number of other students, all of whom had been star performers in high school,
had also failed. And suddenly I realized that MIT was hard for everyone, and
that we were in a different place nowadays.

I was also fortunate to work on the student newspaper, where people talked
openly about not necessarily getting terrific grades, or switching majors so
that they could manage to graduate. Or just changing priorities, such that
getting fantastic grades wasn't the be-all and end-all of being an MIT
student. I ended up with a B average, helped in no small part by the
humanities courses that I took. And you know what? I turned out OK, with a
good career.

It's so, so easy for MIT students to be sucked into thinking that they're
either superhuman overachievers or pathetic losers, and that their careers are
over at the age of 19 because they flunked a course. For years, MIT has said
that they worry about the students who feel this way, because some of them
might end up hurting themselves or even taking their own lives.

But it's a tough balancing act to pull off. Because what's negative for some
people, and causes so much trauma and damage to them, is a positive motivator
for many others.

I'd like for MIT to start giving students a broader view of life. You don't
have to be an amazing student to have a good career, family, or life. You can
be a happy person and not be a billionaire startup founder. And you can even
change your major to something less difficult, if it means being happier.

Really, when you leave college, you're just 21 years old. You have a long,
long time to learn more things and change. And I hate to say it, but some of
the people who were such stellar superhuman students ended up being the sorts
of people you don't necessarily want to hang out with. Given the choice
between being a nice person who enjoys life, and one who does groundbreaking
research, I'd go for the former. I'm fairly sure that MIT doesn't make that
sound like a reasonable, sensible, attainable, or even desirable option. Which
is a shame.

------
whoisthemachine
I went to normal landgrant university in ND (NDSU) and received a Computer
Engineering degree. I can tell you, my experience holds many similarities.
Learning to accept and grow from failure is a key component of an engineering
education.

------
gtirloni
"The Cost of Living" by Barry Schwartz has a whole chapter about education
that seems to explain this kind of situation very well.

------
balabaster
I never attended MIT, nor any big name college, but I have first hand
experience struggling with impostor syndrome that I had since leaving high
school and never having failed at anything I set my mind to. It was
immediately noticeable from the first university math lecture where I was
amongst an entire class of people who grasped concepts I had never even come
across at high school and struggled to understand - even though I had never
struggled at anything before in my life. I'd coasted through high school and
nery once had to apply myself at anything - except Phys Ed. which was more a
toil of will power than enjoyment. The feeling lasted until probably 5 or so
years ago (my early 30s) - in fact, it had been such a prominent part of my
psyche during that part of my life that it hadn't crossed my mind that I'd
moved on until just as I was reading this article.

Upon reflection, I think most of the feeling stemmed from my perception of how
other people were handling themselves in a world I personally felt I was
floundering in. They appeared to take everything in their stride,
understanding everything while I understood nothing and spent many thousands
of hours attempting to understand just to keep from failing academic life -
forget trying to be top of my class as I was used to. Then I became a
programmer, thinking that once I left university, I would be okay; at that
point, I would have made it. But the feeling never went away as I continued to
feel like I was floundering, while my peers appeared to breeze through
concepts I had to work bloody hard to grasp. It took many years for it to dawn
on me that I spent far too long looking at how other people _looked like_ they
were handling it and comparing it to the actual struggles I was having. This
has been dubbed the Facebook effect, where everyone else appears to have such
a great life because that's what they show the world and you compare that to
the struggles you have just to find time to shower, forget looking perfect.

I have come to believe that impostor syndrome is a symptom of the lack of
authenticity in society. Nobody is real with each other and that largely is
the cause of our inability to gauge how deserving we are of the positions we
hold. Behind closed doors, everyone is floundering in different aspects of
their lives. Some areas of life come easily to some, while others remain a
constant struggle their entire lives - but what they show you is a tiny
snippet - the snippet they _want_ to show you. As Baz Lurhman said in
Sunscreen, "Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind, the race is long,
and in the end it's only with yourself." It has only really been as I have
come to see and understand this pervasive lack of authenticity in society that
the impostor syndrome has gone away. I believe that eventually all people get
there, they say that 40 is the age that you stop caring what other people
think and start living for yourself. I think it goes deeper than this and
isn't tied to an age. I think as soon as you hit the dawning realization that
everything you see around you is no more than what those around you want to
show you and that it's all a carefully sculpted illusion to make you believe
what they want you to believe about them, their lives, their businesses etc.
you will realize...

You are not an impostor. You are in the position you are in because someone
sees or saw something in you that you haven't yet begun to see, understand or
accept in yourself. They gave you the chance you asked for because they
believed in you - even when you may not have believed in yourself. The
impostor syndrome you are experiencing is an illusion. You may not understand
that yet, you may not accept that yet, but trust me, as someone who spent a
larger portion of my life battling it than not battling it, you will make it,
you did deserve the chance you were given, you do deserve to be doing what you
are doing. You _are already_ what you are struggling to realize and you don't
need to fake it until you make it. Have heart, everyone has struggles,
everyone has failures, everyone has successes. Don't give in to your
insecurities, they are the beliefs instilled in you by _society 's failure to
you_ \- they are all so busy faking it until they make it that it's leaving
you comparing their fake with your reality.

------
myniggah
I think this happens in all the top Universities. I study in one myself and
professors expect people to put in 20-25 hours per week for a course with 9
hours worth credit. And the reason given is that it gives us a competitive
edge!

------
Dewie
I guess I should feel for these people since I'm in an academic slump myself -
though not any equivalent of MIT or anything. But what do you expect when you
willingly play in the big leagues of nerd status jockeying? If your self-worth
was tied to being the best and brightest in class, you probably won't keep up
with it at a place like that (I mean, do the math, it seems straightforward to
me).

------
simas
“If everything's under control, you're going too slow.” - Mario Andretti

