Excuse me, but you don't belong here...

I was technically a mature student when I started my economics degree. Twenty-two. Apparently in the UK that counts as mature. Go figure. I'm also naturally vocal and outgoing, arguably more so than my peers (I blame my Greek ancestry). You'd think I'd have felt fine. Instead, being the only one in the room who wasn't eighteen made me feel even more out of place. I carried that cold, gnawing doubt that I didn't quite belong throughout my university journey.

When I got my first assignment back, a 2,000-word macroeconomics essay, I'd done well. Really well. An A. But I couldn't believe it.

The lecturer had mentioned he was available after class if anyone wanted to discuss assignment feedback, and I took him up on the offer. He looked at the mark on my paper and said, word for word - "Honestly, what could you possibly have to ask me? I'm not giving feedback to someone who already got an A."

I should have walked away feeling ten feet tall. Instead I walked away convinced it had been a fluke. That feeling stayed with me.

Throughout my degree I kept doing well and kept not believing it. I finished with one of only three academic awards given to a class of more than one hundred students, and I still couldn't accept that I'd earned my place.

I spent the summer after graduation wandering around my university town feeling like a complete fraud. My sense of not belonging was so intense that throughout those three years I half expected an official to interrupt a lecture, tap me on the shoulder and say:

"Excuse me, but you don't belong here."

I know now that this experience is common enough that it has become part of the foundation of my own coaching work with students. And that feeling of being displaced, of feeling like a fraud, of feeling like an interloper, has a name. Imposter syndrome.

Imposter syndrome is often not what people think it is.

People around me assumed it was low confidence. It wasn't. Low confidence sounds like- "I'm not sure I can do this."

If you think the problem is confidence, the advice usually sounds something like- "Believe in yourself. Work harder. You'll get there!”

If you've heard that while feeling like a fraud, you'll know it does bugger all to help. Encouragement tends to bounce straight off because the doubt usually isn't about ability. What I felt was different because I doubted whether I was even allowed to be at university. It's about legitimacy.

That's what makes it so stubborn.

I got straight As. Won an award. Landed several competitive scholarships to complete two master's degrees and a PhD. The evidence sat right there on paper, and my brain still said: "Yeah, but that can't be right. You've fooled them again."

All too common

Research on imposter syndrome in students puts prevalence somewhere between 30 and 70 percent. That's a wide range, but even at the low end it still represents a substantial chunk of the room.

Years later, when I became a lecturer supervising undergraduates, I coached and mentored dozens of students trapped in exactly the same loop.

Many never say out loud that they feel like a fraudalongside it, because saying "I don't belong here" feels dangerously close to proving it. Instead it leaks out sideways. Students come looking for reassurance even though academically they're doing perfectly well. They rewrite an email eleven times because every message feels like evidence to be judged. They rehearse a point in a seminar but never say it. They stand outside office hours with a prepared question, then walk away because asking for help suddenly feels risky.

Imposter syndrome turns everything into a risk calculation.

Eventually students begin treating the feeling itself as evidence. If I feel like I don't belong, then I probably don't.

No number of A grades seems capable of arguing back.

What the feeling actually means

Feeling like a fraud doesn't mean you're about to fail. Usually it means you're doing something new.

New place. New people. New expectations.

When everything feels unfamiliar, your brain fills the gap with doubt. The easiest explanation it reaches for is- You don't belong here.

The problem is that feeling true and being true are not the same thing.

Sometimes it's simply being new. Sometimes it's being watched, having your work graded, or feeling that your contributions are being judged. Sometimes it's looking around the room and deciding that everyone else has figured things out while you're still winging it.

Whatever triggers it, your brain struggles to explain why things suddenly feel difficult. It reaches for the simplest answer- You're not good enough.

It's convincing. And it's wrong.

The fraud feeling isn't a verdict on you. It's a reaction to newness, and the sharpest edge of it usually fades with time.

In your first seminar you sit in silence. By the tenth you finally speak, heart pounding. By the thirtieth the drama has largely gone. You didn't suddenly become smarter. You simply became familiar.

The catch is that it comes back.

A new course. A new job. A new room full of people who seem to know something you don't. Then there it is again.

That doesn't mean you've failed. It just means you're somewhere new again. Over time you begin recognising the feeling for what it is, and you stop letting it sit in the driver's seat.

I still wrestle with it sometimes, even now, even after all of this. I won't pretend that understanding it makes it disappear.

But if someone you know is walking around university convinced they're a fraud, send them this.

Knowing it's a reaction rather than the truth takes some of its teeth out.

I'm writing a lot more about this.

A Uni Survival Guide: Why Smart Students Think They're Faking It is due out in July 2026.

It won't tell you to journal your feelings or repeat affirmations in the mirror. It does the thing this piece started doing. It makes the mechanics of imposter syndrome visible, so you can understand why the seminar feels like a courtroom and why doing well somehow makes the doubt worse rather than better.

It's still in development. If you'd like to know when it lands, and hear about the webinars I'll be running alongside it, sign up to the WeGoGeek newsletter.

Two reasons to put your name down:

1) You'll hear when the book launches, and along side it will likely be free access to some of the chapters, as well as a discount code if you purchase the book as a subscriber to WeGoGeek.

2) You'll get access to webinar dates before anyone else does. The webinars fill up fast.

One final sign-off.

Knowing the feeling is a reaction rather than the truth won't switch it off.

But it does loosen the grip.

And that's a start.