Grappling with ‘Impostor Syndrome’ as a transfer at UC Berkeley

Impostor syndrome is real on campus.

I’m sure I’m not the only student that wondered later on how they were accepted to UC Berkeley. When I found out I was accepted, it made sense — I had worked so hard to get to this point, and I wanted it more than anything. I so badly wanted to be able to say that unlike my predecessors, I had succeeded on an intellectual scale. I had gone the distance, so to speak.

After my first few weeks here, I began to doubt my acceptance and its legitimacy. “They must have made a mistake,” I thought. “There’s no way I can belong here.”

I was featured on my JC’s page for transferring to Berkeley

This thought was a seed of doubt that I let blossom, but it has many more petals than just that. I began to let myself believe that all of my successes were random, that I had somehow been blessed by easy teachers, easy courses, or a semi-qualified GPA that was only given a chance. I began to think that I was only accepted for the story detailed in my personal statement, that because I had endured many challenges I was also somehow fit to attend a rigorous public university.

This thought is known loosely as impostor syndrome, and it affects many adults nationwide. The idea of getting promoted by chance and not by qualifications or an outstanding work ethic, landing a job only because one is female, a person of color, or any other minority, being in any relationship and believing that they are a last resort, that the other person is settling, that one is not truly good enough — only enough to pass. Impostor syndrome is tragically present on college campuses, as well, seeming to hurt the ones who are already minimally represented.

Graduating from JC

Transfer students, like myself, tend to suffer from this because of how differently we live in comparison to those who have been here since their freshman year. The truth is, most transfer students didn’t see themselves ending up at a university like Cal. Many of us, upon graduating high school, were told we weren’t going to make it into a big-name university, that community college or trade school was our best bet. At least, I was.

I was told I couldn’t get accepted to a state college, let alone a massive public university, due to my dismally low GPA. I was told that “not everyone is cut out for academia, and that’s okay,” (and while I agree with this to an extent, it wasn’t true for me due to outside circumstances that were out of my control) and that “I would be better off trying my hardest to get an associates degree, because at least that’s something.”

So I did. I, as well as many other transfer students, graduated from high school and went off to a community college. I found out that not only was I fairly hardworking, but I was also intelligent, and these two qualities could get me places. In order to be accepted to UC Berkeley, an application must have a stellar personal statement, a GPA exceeding average, and some decent extra-curricular activities. I saw these requirements and got to goal planning, and I suspect many transfer students took this path, as well.

Unfortunately, it’s hard to say which element of our applications was more heavily weighed when the admissions office was poring over our qualifications (or lack thereof), deciding whether or not we would make it here. For all we know, our sob stories and tales of triumph and hardship could have won us our slot here. This is usually where impostor syndrome comes in, telling us things like, “it isn’t our intelligence, but our past, of which we had little control.”

This is detrimental to thought and intellectualism. Students struggling with their place at this school tend to be under-represented to start, and then find their commentary, thoughts, and ideas to be sub-par. I want the students here to know that their place at Cal is for them, and them alone. And if we’re here, we deserve to be.