Alyssa Campbell: Perfectly Belonging in Imperfection
My entire life, my mom has joked that I was born with a pencil and paper in my hands. Before I was even able to write words, I had created a “shapeabet.” As I grew older, my journal never left my side, and Microsoft Word was my best friend. I would read online forums arguing about grammar rules and what to break or not to break. English and writing were my life.
Yet I still got to college and felt like I wasn’t smart enough for our English department or the Honors college. When I got accepted to present on the mislabeling of satire via #satire at the College English Association Conference (CEA) in Charlotte, the feeling that I didn’t belong there only magnified. I was excited, sure; when I got the email that I was accepted, I literally screamed in excitement. But it existed alongside a deep-rooted anxiety that I would get there and not be enough.
My first meeting with Dr. Barnette, my advisor, to go over my script brought a major surprise for me. My whole life, I had done theater festivals and speeches. Those are all about perfection and memorization. That is what I came into this experience thinking and knowing. At that first meeting, I was pretty put-together, but by no means perfect. There were a few legal terms that I had learned in my research regarding regulating content people can post that I stumbled over. I hadn’t memorized my script yet. As soon as I finished going over it, I told Dr. Barnette I knew there were many issues and started listing problems. He looked at me and told me how well I did and how I needed some revision, but I was better off than I thought and didn’t need to be “perfect” by the standards I was creating for myself. I didn’t internalize it at the time, but that conversation planted a seed in my mind.
When I got to the conference, it was terrifying. I had only been out of state once alone for only a few hours for a concert and had never stayed in a hotel alone. Not only that, but CEA was for graduate students and professors. What was I, an undergraduate who had never been to a conference, doing there? Some of these people had been teaching as long as I had been alive. Was my presentation good enough? I had only learned what satire was the year before, and many of the legal terms I had only learned in the last few months before the conference.
Each day had four sessions with three to four panelists per session. The panelist would present, then the next would go, then the next. After that, there was a time for questions and answers from the people attending the session. I arrived before session one on day one, and I didn’t present until day two. So, on day one, I got to attend all the sessions and get a feel for the place.
I nervously paced around the hotel, just waiting for the first session to start. Just during my couple hour drive, I had convinced myself that I didn’t belong there. I went into the first session, and it was much more relaxed than I had been expecting. One of the presenters mostly read off of her paper, one presenter had technical issues and everyone was just patient with her about it, and the “Question and Answer” portion I’d been worrying about was more like a discussion between the panel and the audience. There was no looming feeling of judgement. These were just English people talking about their research. I took five pages’ worth of notes, just writing everything I could learn down. Then I went to the second session, and it went about the same way. The more they said, the more I realized I didn’t know. I had expected to learn a lot, but the more I heard, the more I convinced myself that I was out of place.
After lunch was session three, and that is the session that changed everything for me. It was a pedagogy session discussing participation, peer review, and writer workshops. Because I was in an “Approaches to Teaching Writing” course and writing my senior thesis on writing education, I was very comfortable in that panel, and I even contributed to the post-presentation discussion. As I realized that I had something to say, I began to realize that I belonged at CEA. Nobody knew everything about everything each presenter said; if they did, it wouldn’t be a research panel worth having. Just because I didn’t know everything perfectly didn’t mean I didn’t belong. After that session, I began enjoying my experience as an attender, not just as a learner. I went to the last session that day, and it was much more enjoyable than the first two had been.
The next day was my presentation day. I attended both morning panels, and I could definitely feel the difference in my attitude about belonging had carried over into the next day.
I presented in session four. I read more off my script than I had planned to, but I also ad libbed and added a few humorous moments that I never even planned to. Most of the questions afterwards were directed towards me and my presentation. Overall, it went really well.
One of my biggest takeaways from this experience wasn’t even academic, even though I had expected it to be. All along the way preparing, I got more help than I expected from the people around me and learned how supportive my circle was. So, then I thought that that was going to be my “big lesson,” but my lesson ended up being much deeper than that for me. My whole life has been a story of chasing perfection in everything I do and mentally punishing myself for every small mistake. Second guessing myself is one of my defining traits. But the minute I let that go and just focused on learning from the experience and relying on my preparation was the minute I started enjoying myself. Everything after session three was much more enjoyable than everything before it, all because I let myself relax a little. I’m sure I didn’t present perfectly. In fact, I know I messed up on a legal term here and there. But I enjoyed it. And leaving, I was on the biggest performance high of my life. Perfection isn’t the important goal because it is truthfully unattainable. Focusing on it didn’t improve my performance; it just hindered my own enjoyment. Moving forward, I am aiming to let perfection fall to the back burner every once in a while and just live my life because that’s what it’s all about at the end of the day. The shift in my experience at the same exact event after my mindset shift was probably the most live-time experience I’ve ever had with that, and it is something I have already thought back on and applied since.
Alyssa Campbell, a senior English Professional Writing major with a Media minor, presented at the College English Association Conference in spring 2026. After her spring 2026 graduation from Lander, she plans to get her certification to teach and teach English in middle school and high school.