And who cares if it's a little unconventional? Or if it isn't really research at all, but a collection of shiny trinkets that you've meticulously washed in a puddle of rainwater behind the library?

Imposter syndrome is real. In a competitive field like academia, everybody feels like a fraud sometimes, whether it's a scathing peer review, a nasty comment from a student, or being shooed away by campus security when you get caught eating apple cores and chicken bones out of the dining hall dumpster at 3 a.m.