Imposter Syndrome

Does anyone else get this?

'Imposter syndrome can be defined as a collection of feelings of inadequacy that persist even in face of information that indicates that the opposite is true. It is experienced internally as chronic self-doubt, and feelings of intellectual fraudulence.

It is basically feeling that you are not really a successful, competent, and intelligent student or employee, that you are only imposing as such.

Some common feelings and thoughts that might characterize the imposter syndrome are: “I feel like a fake” “My classmates/professors/ boss etc. are going to find out I don’t really belong here,” “Admissions made a mistake” '

As I have posted here, I have been accepted for an MA in Bioethics in September. Going in to college in a couple of weeks.

I have this horrific scenario playing over and over in my head. The Professor an infinitely superior being to me leans over the table and says something like, "What do you think about Thomas Aquinas' theory of delayed hominization, given what we know now about specific recognizable stages of blastula, gastrula and organogenesis?"

And my poor maltreated brain will instantaneously forget everything it ever knew about Thomas Aquinas and his theory of delayed hominization and the vestiges of what I once learned about embryogenesis will completely evaporate. And in that moment, my imposter status will be revealed (that the person whose merits were evaluated and was offered a place on the Masters course doesn't actually exist) and I will be escorted from the campus in a blaze of shame.

No matter what people tell me, I just can't help feeling like this.