Feeling good & competent

I am feeling pretty good today, very competent in my work. First of all, Lynn (my advisor) got back to me about my master's thesis draft, and she said that it is terrific, an excellent project. :-) I have some things to add in and edit in the week and a half before I need to get it to my committee, but compared to what I've already done, very little. ALSO, she said that with one small follow-up study, she thinks it is publishable! Lynn doesn't hand out compliments indescriminately, so I am feeling good about that!

Not only am I mentored by my advisor, but I taught my research methods labs this morning and also felt like a mentor to my students. Little budding psychologists/researchers, sheep to be guided. LOL. (I get this funny image of a bunch of students saying "baaaa, baaaaa!") Half of classtime was devoted to doing lit searches and helping them find articles relevant to their research paper for the semester. I helped them make their topics more specific when needed or more general if they were already too specific and were finding only a handful of references. Also, some of them were getting stuck only thinking of one or two terms to look up their topic, then if they didn't find anything, they were frustrated that nothing was to be found rather than trying different keywords and synonyms in different combinations. Cognitive inflexibility at work in real life! I've been there though, it is tough when you're new to an area. So, I was glad I could help out, and I felt very effective.

Anyway, I have found so far that graduate school involves waxing and waning of one's feelings of self-competence, self-esteem, and effectiveness. In fact, academia in general has the tendency to do this...I know perfectly successful, intelligent and excellent people here who still have the "imposter syndrome," feeling as if they are imposters, can't succeed, aren't cut out for this, and surely someone higher up is going to realize that they made a mistake by hiring them, giving them tenure, etc. It is interesting that people can still FEEL that way even when an outside observer would not think that at all.

This is one of the good days when I feel that I've come a long way and learned a lot!