Growing up in a predominantly white suburb outside St. Paul, Minnesota, I struggled to fit in as a smart, Black girl. In all of my thirteen years of K-12 schooling, I never once had a teacher of color. In high school, I don’t recall there ever being another Black student in my advanced classes. I attended excellent public schools and had wonderful friends, but I could never shake the feeling that I did not quite belong.

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After getting accepted to Carleton College, an elite college outside the Twin Cities, a sense of Imposter Syndrome set in. Sitting among my classmates at the opening convocation ceremony, I felt like a fraud. Irrational thoughts that my admission was somehow a mistake would haunt me. Although I worked hard in my classes and never received a grade lower than a B-, I was plagued by the feeling that I didn’t belong. I found myself changing majors and, eventually, universities, transferring in my second year to the University of Minnesota. I felt like a complete failure.