Tag: growth mindset

Imposter Syndrome and Vocation

Making imposter syndrome more visible shows our students that they are not alone, and it reminds us, as faculty and staff members, that we are not alone either.  

I am an expert on imposter syndrome, not in the academic sense but rather in the lived experience sense. It is the little voice in the back of my head that says, “You’re not supposed to be here” or “Everyone is going to see you don’t belong.” In fact, when I was asked to contribute to Vocation Matters, it showed up and said, “What could you write that your amazing colleagues haven’t already written?” As I considered that little voice, I realized that imposter syndrome might be precisely the vocation-related topic that I could talk about. I imagine that some (maybe even many) of you share my experience and that even more of you know and work with students who share this experience. I want to reflect on how imposter syndrome might intersect with and influence our and our students’ vocational journeys.

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A Global Guide to Caring for the Self

The course encourages a broader classification of self-care, deconstructing the term and common characterization from modern, neoliberal, pop culture references. We remove self-care from a contemporary framework and apply readings, research and discovery to better define it in its global context.

In this third part of a four-part series on care in the academy, I want to share details about an upper-level course I developed for the Wofford College Religion department for Fall 2020 titled A Global Guide to Caring for the Self. 

In 2018, Wofford received a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for general education reform. One high-impact educational initiative we have piloted is a senior culminating experience (SCE) for all fourth-year students. In our reform efforts for general education, we have focused on strategies that explore the growth mindset, identity and perspective, writing, and critical reasoning. I developed A Global Guide to Caring for the Self as an SCE course which embodies the idea of building cumulative learning.   

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