Believe in yourself, college boss tells women graduates

The best advice for women with imposter syndrome? Don’t have it, says the president of a top women’s college at Cambridge University.

- JESSIE THOMPSON

Dorothy Byrne, former head of news and current affairs at Channel 4 and now president of Murray Edwards College, Cambridge, said she gives her female students advice when they graduate in order to boost their confidence.

“My students are all women, and I always tell them: ‘I don’t have imposter syndrome, I would encourage you not to have imposter syndrome.’ I say, ‘I have been a television journalist for more than 40 years, I’m not an imposter, I’m real, but I know loads of men who are imposters.’ So I say start off now not having imposter syndrome,” she told the audience at Hay Festival.

Speaking at the event in Powys, Wales, which is partnered with The Independent, Byrne added the two things she always tells women in the college. “The first thing is, women tend to wait until they have all the qualifications to apply for a job, and men don’t. What I want you to do is think of Boris Johnson – he had no qualifications at all for a job and he applied and he got it,” she said.