Fighting Imposter Syndrome

I almost didn’t become an engineer.

That might sound dramatic, but it’s true. If you had told me years ago that I would be studying engineering at Duke—let alone writing about it—I wouldn’t have believed you.

I’m a visiting international student from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Australia, where women make up about 20% of the engineering cohort. That kind of imbalance shapes your experience in ways you don’t always realize at first. It’s subtle things: the way you scan a classroom and see far fewer people who look like you; the unspoken pressure to prove that you belong; the hesitance to raise your hand in a room full of people who, whether they mean to or not, might assume you don’t know as much as them.

That self-doubt wasn’t new to me. I felt it long before I arrived at Duke.

I first experienced it in high school, standing in Houston’s airport, in tears, after competing at the FIRST Robotics World Championships. I had traveled across the world from Sydney to compete, an accomplishment in itself, but all I could focus on was the thought that I wasn’t good enough. That I had somehow fooled everyone into believing I belonged in STEM when I didn’t. That maybe, if I quietly stepped away, no one would notice.

It took my robotics mentors staging a full intervention to shake me out of that mindset. They sat me down, refuted every irrational doubt I had, and refused to let me walk away from engineering. Their belief in me was a turning point, and it shaped how I see mentorship, not just as guidance, but as a force that can change lives.

Fast forward to now, and I see echoes of that same transformative mentorship at Duke.

When I arrived, I expected things to be different. And they were, but not just in terms of statistics. About 40% of engineering students at Duke are women, which is better than at UNSW, but the real difference wasn’t just in numbers. It was in the culture, the way Duke doesn’t just admit women into engineering, but actively invests in them. And nowhere was that clearer to me than in the way professors engaged with students.

One of the defining moments of my time at Duke wasn’t in a classroom or a lab, it was an email. After publishing an opinion piece on climate activism in The Chronicle, I received a message from Volker Blum, my professor and the Associate Dean for Research and Rooney Family Associate Professor in the Thomas Lord Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science. He had read my article and reached out. Not because I had asked him to, not because it was related to our coursework, but simply because he saw something in my writing and wanted to discuss it.

That kind of moment doesn’t happen everywhere. Dr. Blum is an incredibly busy person, as his titles alone makes clear. Between leading research in computational materials science, shaping the direction of Duke Engineering’s research initiatives, and teaching, he has no shortage of demands on his time. And yet, he still took the time to engage with a student, and a visiting one at that—not as an obligation, but out of genuine intellectual curiosity and support.

To me and my visiting international student peers, who have studied in universities overseas, it’s an unbelievable program. The lack of rigid office hours, no formalities, just real conversations. It’s a small thing, but it makes a huge difference in making faculty feel accessible, reminding students that our ideas and experiences matter. And it’s not just for STEM students. This openness extends across disciplines, creating an environment where learning happens everywhere, not just inside the classroom.

Beyond individual mentorship, Duke has built an infrastructure of support for women in STEM.

Organizations like Women in Science & Engineering (WiSE) provide mentorship and networking opportunities, connecting female students with faculty and industry leaders. A key example of this is their recent SWE Startup Panel, where successful Duke alumnae return to share their experiences in founding companies, navigating male-dominated industries, and pushing the boundaries of what’s possible. Similarly, programs like the Executive Challenge for MEM students, where teams tackle real-world problems in front of industry leaders, help students build technical and leadership skills in high-stakes environments.

These programs matter.

I’ve been fortunate to have mentors who pushed me forward when I doubted myself. But many women don’t get that push. That’s why these programs exist, to ensure that talented women who might otherwise fall out of STEM get the support they deserve.

My time at Duke has solidified one thing: the importance of taking up space.

Women in engineering belong because we are capable, driven, and deserving. And every woman who steps into a lab, a boardroom, or a robotics competition, unshaken by doubt, makes it easier for the next generation to do the same.

Annie Ming Kowalik is a second-year visiting engineering student from the University of New South Wales.