What if someone find out that I am a fraud?

Natasha Ervilha
Nov 3 · 3 min read

Recently I decided to pursue a long term dream: study abroad. This what not only an education experience in a foreign land but the opportunity to live a different culture, to move from a comfort zone and an attempt to become a better professional and moreover a better human being.

Photo by Elena Koycheva on Unsplash

Going through the admission process you have to write infinite motivation letters, different highlights for your CV, giving the committee your foreseeing of your own future, sell yourself in a few lines proving that you deserve to be at a certain program. All of this is really stressful. I see this as the same as applying for a job.

I have passed through this recently and got the chance to be accepted. “Awesome!”; “Good job!”; “Well done!”. Yes, it was great to accomplish this. And here I am now at the program I choose. But a strange feeling have come to my mind recently, a feeling that perhaps I just sold something that I’m not to the selection committee and I am not that good to follow the discussions and my research skill cannot really add useful arguments to the debate.

Maybe you have felt this recently too. I heard about something that make sense for me now: imposter syndrome. To realize that I had to think about specific occasions I have being telling myself I am a fraud, here are some of them:

· “Definitely your English is not that good. You keep forgetting words and having trouble to communicate. Your 106 Toefl score was definitely a mistake.”

· “Maybe your university was not so rigid, that’s why your overall score is 9 out of 10.”

· “Probably they just accepted you at this master because they needed to fill a place and need your tuition.”

If one day you had the same questions or variations of them, well… maybe you have the same issue.

So I decided to read more about it and found an impressive amount of studies showing that this affects more woman and specially woman of color than man. When it comes to the academia those figures get even worse.

Nevertheless I am not here to bring a magic recipe that you can follow and cure yourself. I don’t think that there is a cure for this, but acknowledging it’s a huge first step, and here I am sharing this. This is my tactic to keep myself happy and proud of my accomplishments


It is really tempting to measure ourselves in comparison to others and worse when you add some idealistic concepts of success (Instagram seem to reinforce those patterns for me). Tell myself over and over of how unfair and untrue this is was the first step. This is not a single task but something to do every time those thoughts seem to say “Hello”.

Here are some videos and references that have being helping me to address this. Hope you find your way too.

TEDx — The Surprising Solution to the Imposter Syndrome | Lou Solomon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whyUPLJZljE

TED-ed — What is imposter syndrome and how can you combat it? | Elizabeth Cox: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQUxL4Jm1Lo

Impostor syndrome is a response to a world that doesn’t believe in women |Yomi Adegoke: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/jul/17/impostor-syndrome-is-a-response-to-a-world-that-doesnt-believe-in-women

Natasha Ervilha

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Passionate about finding ways to make the world a better place. Found here a channel to let ideas flow about politics, self-awareness and development.

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