Impostor Syndrome:

Tips & Tricks from Square Code Campers and Interns

Impostor syndrome. It was a token phrase that EVERYONE in tech knew. And as with all such topics, there were the usual responses that we were all well versed in — or so I thought.

According to Geek Feminism Wiki:

“Impostor syndrome describes a situation where someone feels like an impostor or fraud because they think that they have duped the people around them, into believing that their accomplishments are of a high calibre, but in fact believe that their accomplishments are nowhere near as good as the praise or promotions they are accorded based on those accomplishments.”

In preparation for Square’s College Code Camp, an in-house program that uses leadership sessions, coding workshops, and a hackathon to bring together women engineering students and build a stronger community around women in technology, the women engineering interns had an impostor syndrome workshop. During the workshop, we discussed situations when we felt like an impostor and gave each other advice on how to respond to those situations.

For me, many of these situations we discussed were circumstances of the past. I definitely have insecure moments. I still sometimes feel I do not belong in computer science. I question my technical abilities. I question if I deserve internships. I question if I am deserving of scholarships. Sometimes I listen to others who question my accomplishments or technical abilities. However, as someone who goes to a college with an above average percent of women in computing, I feel well-equipped to respond with confidence.

Women engineering lunch with Code Campers, Square employees, and Yelp employees on Thursday of Square Code Camp.

I realized discussions about impostor syndrome that were common at my school were nonexistent at their schools. It did not take long to realize others may be lacking similar discussions —whether they lacked direction from their school or never found support during summer internships, like I did at Square. The value in having such discussions inspired this article to give advice to people who may not know what to say or do when struggling with impostor syndrome—as said by Square interns and Square Code Campers V.

Here are our tips and tricks!

The impostor within:

How to respond to situations where you feel like an impostor.

Practicing our power pose during the Square intern impostor syndrome workshop.

Posture: Sit in a power pose before situations where you tend to feel like an impostor (e.g. interviews, meetings or exams).

Language: Make sure your language presents yourself with confidence. Some common examples of words that can lessen the impact of your ideas and statements in the given context are:

• “Sorry…” after small or no mistakes
• “I think…” when stating an idea
• “I just…” when describing accomplishments

Contribute: Don’t be afraid to contribute even if you don’t understand everything that’s happening. It’s better to take a risk and be wrong than to not speak up at all.

Don’t hold back: Never let yourself do something at less than 100% effort just for the purpose of saying “I didn’t try that hard” if you do not get what you were applying for (e.g. the internship or an A on the exam).

Accept mistakes: Accept mistakes as learning opportunities rather than feeling guilty about them.

• Understand what you can take away from the situation instead of focusing on what you did wrong (e.g. why your pull request was reverted or why you missed the points on the test). No one is perfect all the time!

The environment around you:

How to respond to situations when someone says this to you.

Are you lost? This is the engineering class.

Response: “Why do you ask that?”

Additional Notes:

• Force the other individual to evaluate what he or she said and decide whether it was intentional.
• If it was intentional, feel free to educate them. However, don’t feel obligated to respond with a list of accolades or accomplishments — as that feeds into the idea of impostor syndrome by indicating responding with a “yes” is not enough. You identifying yourself as a computer scientist should be enough to state you are one.

How do you not know that?

Response: “Because I never learned it. I’d appreciate if you taught me.”

Additional Notes:

• It is alright to admit you don’t know things. Remember, the person you are talking to didn’t know it at some point. If you don’t ask about it, you will never learn.
• Knowledge is knowing that you don’t know everything.

You just got lucky.

Response: “If you fail that is luck, if you succeed that was work. There is no way you can succeed by accident.”

Additional Notes:

• Remember how hard you worked before you got it. Don’t let someone tell you that you don’t deserve your accomplishments.
• There is a difference between being humble and knowing your own value.

You got that because you are a minority.

Response: “That was not the determining factor.”

Additional Notes:

• Even if being a minority factored into it, it was meant to combat previous bias that may have existed.
• Unconscious bias is a real thing that causes minorities to be at a disadvantage statistically in getting their foot in the door and advancing in their career. The majorities in the major are also given the silent privilege of not being questioned about belonging. Programs aimed at minorities are created to combat these biases.
• Often times equivalent or greater opportunities are provided for students in the majority group due to unconscious biases in the selection committee— the minority programs are more published and promoted.

Stop the cycle:

• Don’t call a class or a concept easy around people you don’t know — someone else may not agree. There is a strong likelihood that your strength may not be a strength for the people around you.
• Don’t categorize a class or a concept as extremely hard. Easy versus hard is a personal opinion. It is better to explain in greater detail versus categorizing something by difficulty.
• Don’t diminish another individual’s accomplishments. Accomplishments are meant to be celebrated and not compared.
• Call others out when they are doing something that may make someone else feel like an impostor. Often times, people who consider themselves as allies may not realize when they are saying something harmful.

This doesn’t mean you have to always tiptoe around others. Know your audience! In a group of close friends who know the ups and downs you have been through, feel free to open up about your feelings. However, when it comes to others who may just see where you are at and not understand the struggles it took to get there, remember how it felt when you were down. Be careful to not to create situations where others will feel like an impostor.

Let us know how you would respond to these situations!

More resources:

• Geek Feminism Wiki
• The Imposter Syndrome — Mastering the Art of Pretending by Julie Zhuo
• Crushing the Impostor Syndrome by Cassidy Williams

Special thanks to editors: Gloria Kimbwala, Melinda Lam, Vanessa Slavich, Lindsay Wiese