Universities, Scholarships and Impostor Syndrome

 What is it like being smart?

It’s a question I like to jokingly ask my friends whenever they explain some complicated chapter from our syllabus to me, or when they get full marks for a paper they swore up and down they were going to fail. We laugh together, and they brush it off, but the question still lingers in my mind, whispering itself repeatedly as I watch my friends, my classmates, my future colleagues, and think, why can’t I be like them too?

Getting good grades was never something I was naturally good at. When I was younger, my worst subject was English – and the fact that I’m literally writing a blog for fun tells you how much that has changed over time. I was never “naturally” good in any subject – I just managed to figure out the cheat codes early on. Can’t do math? Memorize the steps and practise till you get sick of it. Don’t understand science? YouTube is your best friend. Business studies is tough? Do enough past year papers that you can regurgitate answers in your sleep. I pushed through, I cried, I wanted to bang my head against the wall, but in the end, to see that A or A* on my paper made things worth it. So, I was smart, right? Because that’s what everyone else seemed to think.

It was only when I started my A-levels that I realized, whoops. Something’s wrong. I’d compare myself to my classmates with photographic memory, the ones that study once a week and sleep in class and still manage to get the best scores every exam. Things that would take me an hour to memorize, they could have it done in five minutes.  Sure, I work hard. Sure, I put in effort to be disciplined. But compared to them… I was the dumb one. To you, a B isn’t the end of the world. For me? It was. (Nothing like a B for us A-sians to have a complete mental breakdown cough cough).

But I resigned myself to this: If I got into medical school, it would mean I was smart. Because only smart people get into medical school. That’s what most people said, anyway, that of course I was so smart, I wanted to become a doctor. All doctors are smart, so if I’m a doctor, I’m smart. And, I’ll be honest here, university applications? More of a confidence booster than you think. Listing out all your achievements, writing whole essays on why you deserve your spot – I still read those essays from time to time. Ah, the joy of being naïve.

My yearbook quote when I graduated high school was “Shoot for the moon, and even if you miss, you’ll land amongst the stars”.  This was something I tended to do often, and whether you think of it as me being having delusions of grandeur or being unrealistic, it’s a strategy that I have yet to let go. With a sense of self-worth as shaky as mine, faking it till you make it is the only way you’ll achieve anything noteworthy sometimes. So, it may come as no surprise to you that my delulu self decided to apply to Oxford University as my first choice. Yes, that Oxford University, the one that is known as literally the number one university in the entire world.

Oxford was the first university to reply to my application. And… my first rejection.

It was kind of funny while also being kind of devastating, considering Oxford was the starting point for my dream university – giant, sprawling campus with gorgeous architecture and a myriad of students, all doing interesting and challenging courses, and hopefully cute British boys with funny accents. When I spoke to my mom about university, we’d speak about Oxford, how expensive the costs of living might be, how she’d fly over to see me graduate, how much I’d miss food from home. Heck, I’ve made motivational desktop wallpaper with their logo in the corner. I mean, yeah, I pretty much knew it was a shot in the dark, but it still made me a little sad.

my actual wallpaper from last year

I sat for my first med school interview at my dining table, wearing my mom’s black blazer and cyan-coloured earphones with RGB highlights. My family was perched upstairs, clinging to every word that left my mouth. Once it was done, I let out the biggest sigh of my life – to this day, it was one of the toughest interviews I’ve ever had to attend., so to receive an offer the following day was an extremely gratifying experience, especially considering this university had a reputation for accepting very little international students each year. Keele University was the first to send me an official offer letter and my mom has it printed out and laminated somewhere in our house. It was a glimpse of hope – that I wasn’t just insane, it was possible for me to actually get into a prestigious overseas university.

any guesses to my fave disney princess? hint: not her anymore ;)

Let’s switch countries – anyone reading ever been to Ireland? The most I’ve experienced it was being obsessed with Merida as a kid (technically she’s Scottish but the accents are close enough). And, oh yeah, getting an offer letter from the National University of Ireland! When I tell you I was shell-shocked to get the interview notification, and then proceeded to have the most enjoyable interview ever with the loveliest lecturer I’ll ever meet, and have her tell me DURING the interview that she looks forward to seeing me on campus? Suddenly all my talk about Oxford was immediately changed to NUI. I was googling the nearest museums so I could go see dinosaur bones in real life. I was fully preparing to fake an Irish accent so the locals would like me better. And, most importantly, I had Ed Sheeran’s Galway Girl on repeat in my playlist. It’s called manifesting ✨✨

I also got an offer from a different Irish university, but this one I could do half my course in Ireland and half locally in Malaysia. Realistically speaking, this was the better option as I’d be able to save more. Additionally, they had up to 100% scholarships available, which is near-impossible to find anywhere else on the planet. This university ended up being my first choice for quite a while, contingent that I got the scholarship.

I tried universities in Singapore and Australia, but they needed me to wait an extra year so I could apply with my final A-level results instead of my trials. There was a brief period where someone tried to get me to go to Indonesia, which thankfully didn’t work out, as well as a week-long dilemma over whether it would be worth it to study in India.

But alright, time to address the elephant in the room. Everyone reading this probably knows me in real life, which means they also know I’m not attending any of these universities. Joy, I hear you say, these universities sound fantastic, amazing, life-changing, even. Why are you still in the country and not overseas right now?

me @ my wallet daily

To put it bluntly, I didn’t get scholarships. Or funding. Or any sort of financial help from any of these universities. I was active in extracurriculars, and I had a myriad of other achievements under my belt. They’d impressed the admissions committee, why not the scholarship one? Their reasons for rejecting me grew increasingly avoidant. I’d have to follow up for three days straight to get a reply on my status, which was almost always “not been processed” or “under consideration”.  The worst organizations would just flat-out ignore me, even after calling them up to explain my situation. Once, the actual university itself rejected my scholarship application, and then ghosted me when I asked for feedback as to why it was so.

And late at night, I’d be up thinking, am I just not smart enough?

Is that why they’re not replying to me? Because they want someone smarter?

Am I just not good enough?

 Should I give up now and just go the business school or something?

Ever heard of impostor syndrome? It’s the thing where you’re with a bunch of people, all just as qualified as you are to be here, but your brain keeps telling you you’re the impostor, you’re not supposed to be here, everyone here is super smart, and you’ve just managed to con your way into sitting beside them. Sometimes my lecturer asks a question, and all my friends can answer it except me, and then my mind goes back to those rejection emails, and I wonder if this is why. This, that I need to put in a gargantuan amount of time and effort to achieve results that people achieve overnight. That everyone else here is exceptional, and I’m the odd one out, the weirdo, the loser.

Getting into medical school after all of that was supposed to get rid of my impostor syndrome, but it did also make it a little worse. Medicine is not something just anyone can apply to, let alone even want to do. Being a doctor is something that is going to drain years of your life– when my friends are doing their master’s I’ll still be getting my degree. The people you see taking MBBS are nothing short of the most dedicated, disciplined, passionate and strongest people of their generation. It’s easy to compare yourself to others, even if we are free from the toxic competitivity of our high school days. Some of my classmates are social media influencers, some are athletes, some are dancers, some are artists – they all are so talented, gifted, and unique. It makes you feel insignificant.

The lecturers too – don’t be fooled by all those #1 teacher mugs on their desks. We’ve had speech after speech about how we must be the laziest and most academically challenged batch they’ve ever seen; some even have told us we must be the students no other university wanted to take in because we were just that bad. Already our seniors are telling us how much the hospital staff will hate us because we are students getting in the way of their jobs. Even well-meaning adults only discourage us further, asking how we are going to manage 5 years of what could be legally defined as torture, followed by 2 years of underpaid internship and being yelled at by your boss. I know they all mean well, and want to encourage us to keep bettering ourselves, but it sometimes feels like everyone takes one look at me and is thinking, she doesn’t belong here. She’s not going to make it. 

She’s the impostor amogus

I wish I could say this is something that I have miraculously freed myself from, and I’m writing this blog post to share my 100% effective speedrun to do so. That’s… quite literally what I thought getting into medical school would do to me. But that’s not what happened. I still struggle with my self-worth and confidence – one day I can walk up on stage and be an emcee to a crowd of 100 people, the next day I send a text to the wrong number and scream into my pillow. I’m sure of my identity and my values, but I still haven’t gotten rid of that awkward, cringe pre-teen kid I used to be. Even now, writing this – you’re reading the 10^th draft of something that’s been on my desktop for the better part of a month.

The best advice I can give is to find people whose opinions you trust. Like a friend who will tell you whether your new pair of glasses suits your face. Or a roommate who will tell you when your dreams of a giant mansion with a swimming pool are unrealistic for your current rental budget, or when your mom says that dress doesn’t suit you. They’ll let you know what people are really thinking about you, so you don’t have to rely on the voices inside your head telling you the worst possible outcome. If you don’t have friends like those, I’d suggest investing in a body language course. Or, you know. Finding friends.

This is just something I wanted to get off my chest. It’s kind of messy and there’s not really a point to this, but I think it’s worthwhile. I already do lots of reflective pieces in my spare time, this is just one I’ve published. Briefly, I considered trying to modify this angsty one I wrote two months ago about the crushing weight of loneliness and my ever-growing concerns about the existence of soulmates. So, if anyone wants to read that let me know :)

Talk to you later, world.

Yours,
Joy