Reflections on imposter syndrome
Each week, in our weekly team meeting, we set out to explore complex/interesting topics. Recently we touched on learning to learn, and imposter syndrome came up, while discussing what can and what can't enable a "being good at learning" disposition.
I'll admit that so far my reflections on imposter syndrome stopped at the personal belief that, if one can harness it, it can be turned into a positive force, a force that will encourage us to double-check our work, reduce bias, foster capacity to incorporate feedback, and thus lead to better, more sound results overall.
In the weekly meeting multiple, different point of views were offered, and while considering this diversity it dawned to me how much of my own point of view is born out of my generally positive experience of working in ICT. I started out in 1996 when, at university, I was first exposed to computers, Linux, and the internet.
I was lucky because the internet was just starting out, and so was I.
Things were new, but then again they were new for everybody else too. That made learning relatively simple because because there was not much to learn in the first place. Or better, there was, but it was manageable.
On the downside learning material was scarce, and often expensive to acquire. I remember buying books from Amazon or Barnes and Noble at 50$/book (shipping, ouch) and waiting 3-4 weeks for delivery to Europe. There was only Amazon US back then.
I guess today things are tougher: the learning curve is steep right off the bat, and keeps shifting (by a lot!) every 1-2 years. And that's why, when asked by a colleague what to learn to be "hireable" I replied they should learn to be good at learning. Not a really practical answer, I know. Perhaps even a bit fluffy, I agree. To fix that we are now exploring how to be good at learning as a team. But I'm digressing.
Back to imposter syndrome; what I think is different and harder now is this immense complexity which is present right at the beginning of one's journey in ICT. I can imagine how that can fuel an imposter syndrome complex very fast, up to the point of being unhealthy.
What I don't know (yet) is how do we deal with this problem? And I mean from where I stand: as someone who has had a successful and satisfying career in ICT until now. In other words, how can I help someone who suffers as a result of imposter syndrome?
Off the top of my head I can suggest the following strategies. Note that this more of a brain dump post, so I can't/won't go into more details yet. Perhaps I will probably do it in a follow up when I have had more time to reflect and try some things out.
Learn the fundamentals
You should know that cpu access is faster than ram, ram is faster than disk and disk is faster the network, and the orders of magnitude of difference. Another pretty good tool in anyone's learning arsenal is to be able to explain what happens when you type an URL in the browser: dns resolution, tcp-ip, how HTTP protocol works, and being able to simulate an actual HTTP request with netcat.