So this week's post will be split in two, as there's a lot on my mind at present. As you can see in the above image, one of this week's themes is "imposter syndrome". You wouldn't believe how many blogs there are out there mentioning this (and hey-presto, I've added to that mess). It might interest you to know that imposter-syndrome is quite common in areas where one's work is routinely critiqued by peers. Sound familiar? It should - that's academia and postgraduate study, baby!
This methodology chapter has been doing my head in. I think I severely underestimated how much knowledge I would have to acquire. I barely understand standpoint epistemology (I mean, I get the basic gist, but c'mon), and yet I'm writing about it like I know it well. I think that's where the imposter part comes in.
I'm at times plagued by this overwhelming anxiety that I don't belong here, I don't have the intelligence or capacity to be an honours student, let alone be one of the dreaded PhD students. I feel like fortune and luck has got me this far, and at some point someone will notice that I know nothing. I know that's stupid to say, of course I have the ability, why would people agree to supervise me if they didn't think I was capable, etc.
It doesn't change the fact that I feel like I barely even understand my project at times. On several occasions, I have left my supervisor meetings convinced that my research question or aim has changed somewhat. Add to that, that I'm writing about a methodology that only vaguely seems to make sense to me (the theoretical framework of my methodology has nothing to do with the major theory which comprised my literature review), and yeah - bummer town, dude.
I'm sure I'll get over it. This all sounds vaguely like my week 2 posting, where I emo'd up a storm there, too. I know it's hard for most of the peers in my group to relate entirely as they're at the culmination of their projects now. For them, they mostly know what it is they've synthesised. At this stage, I'm struggling to recruit people for my research - tumblr is strange in the way it operates. Unlike Facebook, direct contact is not so easy. I'm also faced with the challenge that these are communities that quite possibly do not take kindly to outsiders. Now there's some stress - what if I can't find enough recruits? How long will it delay my overall timeline? Ugh...
This gif pretty much sums up my recruitment process so far:
