Now that grades have been released, I feel like it’s a good time to do another thread on #ImposterSyndrome. Especially for 1Ls. Because nothing will shake your self-confidence quite like getting lower than expected grades in the middle of the pandemic.

Firstly, and if you’re in law school you should know this by now, imposter syndrome is everywhere. You may have felt it on your first day of 1L when you spent the day meeting brilliant people with a miles-long list of accomplishments.

You may have (like me) felt that you cheated to get into law school because your undergraduate degree was “easy” -- it wasn’t math or engineering. If you had taken a “real” undergraduate program, you never would have been able to get a high enough GPA to get in to law school.

You may have thought to yourself “I’m not supposed to be here. I’m not good enough. Any moment, they will find out, and I will be rejected.”

But then, the year went on, and no one seemed to notice that you don’t belong. You began to learn vast quantities of information. Legal rules. Latin phrases. Case names. You began to forget that you are an imposter.

Then came the first set of midterm grades heading into recruit. They weren’t exactly what you expected, but you didn’t have time to worry about them because you were determined to get a summer job.

Most 1Ls don’t get a job in formal recruit. It can be one of the most devastating experiences to be rejected by every single firm you apply to. It is the perfect opportunity for imposter syndrome to sneak back in.

You feel like there is no way you’re cut out for this profession. Your career is over before it starts.

But you push on.

You kept applying. Jobs became available. But 2020 had its own plans to make everybody’s imposter syndrome flare up even worse.

The pandemic took away work opportunities. Jobs were pulled out from under students’ feet. It’s not fair. It made the self-doubt worse.

But you finished. You completed exams from home (!!!) in the middle of global chaos. In the midst of all of the stress. You did it. You are now a rising 2L.

I know your grades may not have been what you expected. Law school grades can be a shock under regular circumstances, let alone in a global pandemic.

These are exceptional times, and you need to go easy on yourself. It’s okay to grieve. It’s okay to be disappointed, to feel like you should have done better.

Decades from now, when you think back on that cursed year 2020, you'll be so proud that you made it through. You won’t care about your B- in Property. You'll tell your kids, or neighbour's kids, that you finished your 1st yr of law school in a pandemic. That's amazing in itself.

Imposter syndrome doesn’t go away when you finish law school. As Kyla Lee pointed out this week, it happens to lawyers too. https://twitter.com/IRPlawyer/status/1260329176084516864?s=20

It’s okay to feel like you don’t belong, that you’re not good enough, or that you will fail. Everyone has those thoughts. Notice them when they come into your head. Acknowledge how wrong they are. You are SO meant to be here!

If you want to read more, check out this thread that I previously did on #ImposterSyndrome https://twitter.com/dahlke_lisa/status/1140700420332908544?s=20

And if you are a lawyer or law student in Alberta struggling with #ImposterSydrome, reach out to @LawyersAssist. They offer free, confidential counselling services which we could all use in these turbulent times.