Man, critiques, this brings me back to the good old school days. I always had the existential dread as I would always think that my project was absolutely awful and then, when I finally presented it, people usually had nice things to say about it.
I 100% agree that critiques can actually be super helpful because, honestly other people usually notice things about your project that you completely miss. Getting other perspectives on your work is usually always leads to creating better work.