On Success

My senior years, in high school and now as an undergrad, always seem to be filled with award notifications. Talking about it feels like bragging, and maybe it is. I don’t know where the line is, which is probably part of my problem.

This year, it was a research grant, a student technical paper and presentation contest, then a memorial scholarship designated for outstanding graduating seniors in physics. PhD program acceptances to a great state school, and then to my dream school.

And then it was the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP). The National Science Foundation itself identified me as an “outstanding graduate student” who will “become a knowledge expert who can contribute significantly to research, teaching, and innovations in science and engineering.”

This award rocked my entire sense of self. Rather than feeling proud, I felt lost. I had never fooled myself into believing I could achieve this. My dream school was one thing, but I had the research experience and connections to be competitive there. The GRFP? I wasn’t a first author on a paper of my own discoveries. I hadn’t started a science club for underprivileged students or coded a website that explains my research. I was secretary of a bunch of organizations because I refused the responsibility of being president; I had helped at a couple elementary science club meetings; I was last author (before the PI) on someone else’s paper for having spent a semester repeating a chemical growth over and over and failing each time. I had–let’s be honest–half-assed my application. I knew I wasn’t qualified, and mainly just wanted to say I had tried and get the practice and critiques for next year.

And yet I got it.

I still don’t know how it happened. Many of my more qualified (as I see it) peers were denied, and yet I was accepted. Apparently even NSF still hasn’t figured out I’m faking it–talk about impostor syndrome.

Or–what does this say about myself? About my basic ability to perceive reality? One thought keeps forcing its way into my mind–how was I this wrong? There was no way I was qualified for this, or so I thought. But three reviewers thought differently. Three reviewers with about a minute apiece to score my application, as I keep reminding myself. They make mistakes. Qualified applicants are denied. Unqualified ones are accepted.

But yet, I got in. My perception of reality was blatantly wrong.

I’m not sure where to go from here.