PA SSOVE R SE DE R

2A — Monday, April 22, 2019
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News

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The table is set for a Passover Seder hosted by students in coordination with Michigan Hillel Saturday night. 

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After getting her ACT scores 
back, Hancock decided to relin-
quish her dreams of back-spotting 
a basket toss and set her sights on 
a more academic path: the Univer-
sity of Michigan. Yet her decision 
was met with hesitation from her 
peers, parents and even her teach-
ers, causing her to fully realize the 
“name that Michigan carries.”
“A lot of the teachers that I came 
across when I told them about 
my plans were kind of like ‘Oh 
wow, really? That’s kind of a reach 
school,’” Hancock said. “Not a lot of 
people from my school move on to 
bigger name schools. An important 
professional at the school pulled me 
aside and told me, ‘I think it’s good 
that you’re going to Michigan, but 
I think you need to be ready and 
aware that you’re going to go from 
being top to the middle or bottom.’ 
It seemed like really good realistic 
advice then, but now that I think 
about it, it feels like it was really dis-
counting. I went to a small school 
where they weren’t prepared to 

prepare to students to strive for 
more. So, I think that kind of set me 
up for feeling a little anxious here.”
Hancock is not the only student 
harboring anxieties about being in 
“the middle or bottom.” Accord-
ing to the survey of 400 students 
conducted by The Michigan Daily, 
87.9 percent of undergraduates said 
they often compare their academic 
ability to those around them.
By 
attending 
a 
university 
ranked fourth in “Best Public Uni-
versities,” 20th in the world for 
research-intensive universities and 
one which routinely generates cap-
tains of industry, Nobel laureates 
and Hollywood elites, Hancock 
wondered: How can you not have 
imposter syndrome?
“You look at that student and 
think, ‘Holy cow, how are you 
so smart? How are you doing so 
much? How are you on the execu-
tive board of six different organiza-
tions?’” Hancock said. “It kind of 
makes you feel like shit. I’m strug-
gling to sometimes remember to 
take a shower.”
The students polled by The 
Daily reported symptoms of impos-
ter syndrome, a term coined by 

psychologists Pauline Clance and 
Suzanne Imes in 1978. Imposter 
syndrome refers to the feeling of 
“phoniness in people who believe 
that they are not intelligent, capable 
or creative despite evidence of high 
achievement.” While these people 
are “highly motivated to achieve,” 
they regularly “live in fear of being 
‘found out’ or exposed as frauds.”
Overall, Hancock said imposter 
syndrome affects her day to day 
life, hindering her ability to suc-
ceed at the University.
“I feel like there has not been 
enough acknowledgement of the 
impact it can have,” Hancock said. 
“I feel like for me at least it might 
be a combination of other things, 
but it’s had a big impact on my men-
tal health and just my hope for the 
future. When you believe that you 
don’t belong here, you don’t believe 
that it is going to give you the poten-
tial to be great.”
Counseling and Psychological 
Services psychologist Dr. Chris-
tine Asidao has recently noticed 
a growing trend among students 
with symptoms of the imposter 
syndrome.
“It’s 
not 
typically 
students 
directly say they have impos-
ter syndrome — it’s typically 
the qualities that I see such 
as feeling inadequate, maybe 
having experiences of just low 
self-confidence, low self-worth, 
there’s a lot of social compari-
son,” Asidao said. “Thinking 
about the motto of the univer-
sity: leaders and best. Does that 
mean everyone can be a leader 
and everyone can be the best?”
Socioeconomic status can 
also heighten the impact of 
imposter 
syndrome. 
Every 
semester since her freshman 
year Hancock has worked a 
part-time job. For three years, 
Hancock operated as an assis-
tant manager at a bar, serving 
drinks from 6 p.m. to 3 a.m. 

multiple days a week. During foot-
ball seasons, she said would work 
up to six days a week.
“I actually feel like I don’t think 
I made it work that well,” Han-
cock said. “My grades went down. 
They’ve gotten way better this 
semester, as it’s the first semester I 
haven’t worked since my freshman 
year. For me, that’s cold hard evi-
dence that having to work in order 
to survive is not really beneficial for 
students here.”
Hancock is also a residential 
adviser at Bursley Residence Hall, 
a position she said she took to com-
pensate for the lack of affordable 
housing in Ann Arbor.
In The Daily’s survey, 68.1 per-
cent of respondents from house-
holds with a yearly income of less 
than $100,000 said they found it 
challenging to accept compliments, 
compared to half of respondents 
with a yearly family income of 
$100,000-200,000 and only 35.9 
percent of those whose families 
made more than $200,000 a year.
Paired with a lack of interest 
and insufficient funding for books, 
Hancock said she felt discouraged 
and switched her focus from pre-
med to gender and health.
“I had a hard time thinking of 
being this put-together profes-
sional when I kind of come from a 
‘white trash’ family — and antici-
pating that I don’t know how to 
work a job that’s not like my par-
ents in a factory,” Hancock said. 
“I had to be taught by my partner, 
like, whether you wear a belt with 
dress pants or not. A lot of it is just 
trying to separate where I come 
from and where I’m going. I don’t 
have to remain completely the 
same as where I’m from, I’m here, 
so I should be on the same bar as all 
these other people.”

IMPOSTER
From Page 1A

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