<p>Just wanted to throw this out there and see what people think? I just finished my first year of graduate school, and boy, it was quite a ride. It was both challenging and rewarding at the same time, but I feel like I am not learning as much as I want to or would like to at this stage. I have tried to do things that are asked of me, but somehow I think I am not getting the material or maybe I am feeling I am not smart enough. I feel like sometimes I blank out on things, and don't participate in the fear that I might say something stupid. I feel like other people around me are so smart and I just kind of feel dumb. I am not confident to make assertions or voice my comments, maybe because I am still learning, but I feel like at this stage, I should already have a solid foundation and understanding in my field--but its the other way around for me. Has anybody gone through this feeling? I don't know what to do. This is interfering with my motivation level to even concentrate. I am worried--and I am only starting my second year. I feel like how am I going to survive PhD if I am getting anxious already so early in my career. </p>
<p>Any suggestions on what to do in cases like this? </p>
<p>Thanks so much as always for reading my post and for giving helpful advice.</p>
<p>My basic response to your post (as a first year myself) is : Yes. (General agreement)
Sometimes halfway through a lecture/seminar/whathaveyou I realize there is some basic background facts that I don’t know (What is “X”? What does a “whatsit” even do?) - then I turn to my classmates that I think are brilliant know-everythings and whisper my question and they look at me and are like, ‘no idea’… So then I don’t feel as bad. And perhaps get up the courage to ask a question to the person talking. Other times, classmates do know what’s up on a topic I don’t have any background on (but that’s their specialty) and I feel lost, but then other times, they have questions on things that I am like, ‘what? you don’t know that?’ and so it balances out. Yeah, I think a lot of us feel like we aren’t good enough. In the years to come, you will probably know more than you ever wanted to know about randomthesistopic than you ever wanted to know. Don’t fret yet.</p>
<p>I don’t think this is just imposter syndrome (IS) (I thought about mentioning that but if the OP feels like I have felt and has read the same stuff on imposter syndrome as I have, I don’t think it’s quite the same thing – so much is just chalked up to IS, but it feels like the cop-out answer all grad students are given whenever they feel anything but smart, confident people) As I take it, IS is more about feeling like fraud, that you don’t deserve being at FancyResearchSchool and are going to ‘found out’ as not being SuperGradStudent that you are cracked up to be (you’re just good at pretending)… I guess feeling stupid could be IS-like, but I think there is something subtly different in the OP’s feelings as not knowing enough (not like he/she’s a fraud or imposter or not deserving, but instead, not becoming an expert fast enough, understanding everything well enough, etc.)</p>
<p>Are you saying that you are learning at a slower rate than your first-year peers, or that you wish your courses covered more material? Or did you expect to be thoroughly knowledgable about your field after one year of graduate school? Have you ended up in rotation labs that haven’t let you go beyond the research level you’ve had in the past?</p>
<p>First, you should only compare yourself to first-years, not to second-years or beyond, or post-docs, and especially not your professors. Every year of graduate school equates to an understanding at a completely different level. Second, every graduate student discovers how much he doesn’t know. For this reason, LAC operon’s description will resonate with a lot of graduate students. Next, the easiest, though time-consuming, way to understand your subfield is to go down the rabbit hole with journal articles – that is, read important articles in your subfield, then chase the citations (both the ones that the article cites and those that cite the article). If you are doing this already, then I suspect you know much more than you realize. If you haven’t, then you’ll be surprised by how rapidly your knowledge increases; at first, you’ll have to look up a lot of stuff, but as you get going, you’ll start to understand the basis for the research and what it means.</p>
<p>One of my favorite moments in graduate school was taking a course different from my own methodology. It had been so long since I used this particular methodology so I asked the professor IN class how this term Y was applicable to what we were looking at. The professor looked around and said, “Okay you X PhDs, what is Y?” Believe it or not, these first, second, and third years were blanking out and sputtering what they thought Y was. It took a few minutes of discussion and review before everyone understood what Y really meant.</p>
<p>I’ve seen it happen over and over that everyone comes in with a vague idea of what A, B, C, and so on are but it’s not really until someone asks in a seminar that it’s an opportunity for the professor and graduate students in the program to be ON the same page, especially with the foundation that supports all of your more advanced knowledge.</p>
<p>Also, don’t be afraid to ask your professor privately when you have a chance, even if it’s after the class. They will want you to keep up with the class and see you succeed.</p>
<p>I guess my problem this whole time has been not asking for help at the right time. I feel like if I am in graduate school, I should figure things out on my own, not realizing that I will eventually need other people’s help. This is what I have been struggling with, even in classes, I feel like the reason why I don’t speak up is because I fear asking questions, only to think I might sound stupid. And I am aware of the “impostor syndrome” and I do sometimes think that I don’t deserve to be here, thinking that my ideas are trivial and that the committee will find out that I am fooling everyone. But, I can’t help to feel this way, especially when people around me have more knowledge, confidence in their work and are better able to present themselves than myself. I guess I have somewhat learned my lesson about asking for help when you need it. This transition to graduate work has been rather challenging, especially the first year when you are doing rotations and you don’t know where you will end up. But, hopefully, I will do better in the coming years once I have a lab to settle in. </p>
<p>Thanks for all the help! Its always nice to write and share experiences on this platform and receive great advice from you all.</p>
<p>Read and talk and do. Read and talk and do.</p>
<p>When learning, you will always have lots of niggling questions, no matter whether you are smart or dumb. The difference between the smart kid and dumb kid is that the smart kid follows up on the confusion and the dumb kid ignores it. Do not ignore it. Spend hours following up, asking professors, reading books. Eventually these learning opportunities accumulate and you will be a smart kid who is fluent in the fundamentals enough to learn the advanced concepts. (My two cents)</p>
<p>I think it is imposter syndrome - yes, a lot of imposter syndrome is feeling like a fraud and not belonging, but there’s also an element that’s about not feeling like you know as much as your colleagues, not participating in discussions because you believe you have nothing to offer, not asking questions because you don’t want to look stupid, and feeling like there’s some basic knowledge of your field that you’ve missed. Unless you really HAVE missed some basic knowledge of your field (and aren’t just forgetting it in a moment of panic), it sounds like classic imposter syndrome - these are all of the “symptoms” that make you feel like you are a fraud.</p>
<p>Good news is that it goes away. You gain more confidence as the years go by; you read more in your field, you realize one day that you can rattle off names and experiments and people and theories with ease and that you actually know what people are talking about when they mention some obscure mathematical technique or whatever it is in your field. Not only that, but you learn how to manage your time better; you learn how to absorb more information in shorter periods of time, and you learn how to ask for help when you need it and when you can do things on your own.</p>
<p>I just finished my third year, and I’d say that the imposter syndrome started going away maybe the end of my second year, beginning of my third. It takes a long time, but ironically it happens some time after classes, maybe around when you prepare your comprehensives. I know that my comp exams were a big boost for me because I just powered through the questions and realized how much I knew, REALLY knew very well and could talk about in an essay I wrote in just 2 hours off the top of my head. I impressed myself!</p>