Ever Felt Like a Total Fraud? Here’s How I Faced My First Tech Talk

The acceptance email from ICITACEE 2025 landed in my inbox. My paper—on using Blockchain and IPFS to combat fake academic certificates—was in. For about five glorious seconds, I was on top of the world. A student presenting at a major tech conference? It felt like a dream.

Then, the dream evaporated, replaced by a cold, crashing wave of dread. I actually had to stand up and talk about this. In a room full of experts who live and breathe this stuff.

That’s when the impostor showed up.

The Voice in My Head

It wasn't just nerves; it was a deep, gut-level conviction that I was a complete fraud who had somehow tricked the review board. My mind started spinning a narrative of my own incompetence, even with the acceptance letter staring me in the face.

This is Impostor Syndrome, a term coined by psychologists Pauline R. Clance and Suzanne A. Imes in the 1970s. They described it perfectly as the "internal experience of intellectual phoniness." It’s a persistent belief that you don’t deserve your own achievements. People experiencing it are convinced they've simply fooled everyone into thinking they're smarter or more competent than they are. Success isn’t seen as a result of skill, but of luck, timing, or deceit. If someone had congratulated me then, my first instinct would have been to say, "I just got lucky."

My biggest fear was that someone in the audience would stand up, point a finger, and expose me: "He knows nothing!" The week before the talk was a non-stop anxiety festival, my thoughts a highlight reel of everything that could go wrong: What if I freeze? What if my demo fails? What if they ask about a paper I haven’t even read?

A Stoic's Toolkit for Panic

Drowning in "what-ifs," I reached for a lifeline: Stoicism. The core idea is simple but powerful: separate what you can control from what you can't.

I couldn’t control the audience’s reaction, a potential projector glitch, or the questions they might ask. But I could control how well I knew my material, how much I practiced, and how clearly I structured my slides.

So, I channeled all that nervous energy into my circle of control. My job wasn't to be the smartest person in the room; it was simply to explain my project with clarity and honesty. That was it. I rehearsed relentlessly, not to memorize a script, but to internalize the story of my work.

Walking to that podium was still terrifying. My heart was trying to hammer its way out of my chest. But as I began speaking about the nuts and bolts of the project—the cryptography, the decentralized file system—a funny thing happened. My passion started to take over. The fear didn't vanish, but it was relegated to the back seat instead of driving the car.

The Q&A session, which I'd built up as my execution, turned into the best part. The questions were insightful, not accusatory. It felt less like an interrogation and more like a collaborative conversation. It was the final piece of evidence my brain needed to consider that maybe, just maybe, I did belong there.

Coping Mechanism or Stepping Stone?

Afterward, I thought about one point: Is Stoicism just a coping mechanism?

The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche certainly thought so. He was critical of Stoicism, viewing it as a philosophy for people who could only say "no" to life—a way to grit your teeth and endure hardship rather than embracing challenges to grow stronger. He saw it as a defensive crouch against the world.

And in a way, he’s not wrong. My use of Stoicism was absolutely a coping mechanism. It was emergency triage for my anxiety. It was the tool I used to quiet the panic just enough to get my foot on the stage.

But it wasn't the whole story. Stoicism got me to the podium, but what happened at the podium was different. That was about engaging with the fear, channeling the passion, and connecting with the audience. That was a life-affirming "yes."

Perhaps the best approach isn't about choosing one philosophy. Stoicism was the shield that let me enter the arena. But winning the fight required stepping out from behind it. It was the practical tool that enabled the transformative experience.

Leaving that podium, the feeling wasn't just relief. It was a quiet confidence. I had faced the impostor in my head and done the thing anyway. The biggest battle wasn't with a skeptical audience, but with myself. And for the first time, I felt like I was winning.