Impostors in the Library: Addressing Graduate Students’ Impostor Feelings

Impostor phenomenon—feeling like a fraud and a failure while misattributing all successes to chance—is very prevalent among graduate students. This common experience is associated with depression, anxiety, and leaving graduate school. Impostor phenomenon is often triggered in students who feel unprepared because they have not yet learned the skills they need to perform research in their discipline. Because impostor phenomenon is closely linked to the process of acquiring academic research skills and disciplinary norms, it is highly relevant to the work of librarians who support graduate student scholarship. Yet the topic of student impostor phenomenon is largely overlooked in library literature. This article seeks to close this gap by providing a review of the literature on impostorism and its prevalence among graduate students; expanding on the connections between impostor phenomenon, sense of belonging, and acquisition of research skills; and suggesting practices librarians already engage in that can be adapted to prevent or mitigate impostor feelings in their patrons.