I teach frontend development, design, and build websites, and run a YouTube channel for learning design and frontend development, Professor K Explains.
Location
Boston
Education
Michigan State University, Brandeis University
Work
Associate Creative Director / Lecturer at Boston University
I wouldn’t be so quick to say doubt is the only cause of these feelings. The idea behind being an “imposter” is that you’re playing a role you don’t believe you fit in. This could be from a knowledge perspective, but it could also be because you look, think, act, or come from a different background than the people around you and your role models. Or, maybe your expertise is not as “highly valued” as others. For example, my expertise is in frontend development - HTML, CSS, JavaScript - but I still hesitate to own that knowledge and call myself a frontend developer because my background is in design, and the parts of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript I am best at reflect that.
I won’t lie, I even feel out of my depth posting here. My peers at my employment level are all male, I’ve never had a female mentor or manager, and I grew up without internet access at home, so my story of growing up in web development is not the same as most others my age. I relate to a lot of this article, but I don’t think it’s because I doubt myself. I think it’s because others, whether they realize it or not, inherently doubt me, and when you live in that world, it wears you down as you simultaneously fight those assumptions while trying not to internalize them.
I just read this great article (hbr.org/2021/02/stop-telling-women...) about how imposter syndrome can be a harmful term, because it places blame on the victim for feeling those doubts, instead of addressing where the doubt comes from (unhealthy cultures, biases, etc). Over the past few years, I think we’ve done a good job bringing this experience to light and normalizing talking about the fact that it is happening. It sounds like we’re now in a good spot to move on from that and start pushing to examine why it happens in the first place, so we can reduce it.
Also, RegEx is the actual worst. I’m convinced it’s impossible to learn. I can get a handle on just about anything except RegEx.
I think it’s because others, whether they realize it or not, inherently doubt me
It's completely normal to doubt people until they somehow prove what they're capable of. Picking up on this doubt and internalising it might just be a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy: you feel like everyone doubts you, so you become very careful in expressing your opinion, so the others never get to see what you're actually capable of.
Maybe this is a matter of some internalised misconceptions about what a programmer should and shouldn't be like, or maybe it's simply a matter of personality. Either way, showing others what you're good at is the only way for them to know, and to break out of the loop.
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I wouldn’t be so quick to say doubt is the only cause of these feelings. The idea behind being an “imposter” is that you’re playing a role you don’t believe you fit in. This could be from a knowledge perspective, but it could also be because you look, think, act, or come from a different background than the people around you and your role models. Or, maybe your expertise is not as “highly valued” as others. For example, my expertise is in frontend development - HTML, CSS, JavaScript - but I still hesitate to own that knowledge and call myself a frontend developer because my background is in design, and the parts of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript I am best at reflect that.
I won’t lie, I even feel out of my depth posting here. My peers at my employment level are all male, I’ve never had a female mentor or manager, and I grew up without internet access at home, so my story of growing up in web development is not the same as most others my age. I relate to a lot of this article, but I don’t think it’s because I doubt myself. I think it’s because others, whether they realize it or not, inherently doubt me, and when you live in that world, it wears you down as you simultaneously fight those assumptions while trying not to internalize them.
I just read this great article (hbr.org/2021/02/stop-telling-women...) about how imposter syndrome can be a harmful term, because it places blame on the victim for feeling those doubts, instead of addressing where the doubt comes from (unhealthy cultures, biases, etc). Over the past few years, I think we’ve done a good job bringing this experience to light and normalizing talking about the fact that it is happening. It sounds like we’re now in a good spot to move on from that and start pushing to examine why it happens in the first place, so we can reduce it.
Also, RegEx is the actual worst. I’m convinced it’s impossible to learn. I can get a handle on just about anything except RegEx.
You may enjoy this thing I wrote.
dev.to/kwstannard/why-not-regexp-563
On regex, if you have got the basic concept, check out regex101.com. I use it every time now.
It will break down any regex pattern into its parts and explain each bit. It also has a nice interface for testing them
It's completely normal to doubt people until they somehow prove what they're capable of. Picking up on this doubt and internalising it might just be a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy: you feel like everyone doubts you, so you become very careful in expressing your opinion, so the others never get to see what you're actually capable of.
Maybe this is a matter of some internalised misconceptions about what a programmer should and shouldn't be like, or maybe it's simply a matter of personality. Either way, showing others what you're good at is the only way for them to know, and to break out of the loop.