‘Is failure a part of the road to success? Do we have to be ready to fail if we want to be successful?’ I’ve been asking myself this a lot lately.
The first semester of graduate school was extremely hard for me. On average, I only slept five hours a night because I couldn’t keep up with my classes, homework, projects, exams and research.
I’d never in my life been as stressed as I was then. My hormones were totally out of whack and I was sweating all the time. Even though I worked very hard and slept so little, it didn’t help. I didn’t do well in my classes and I even failed one. As a result, I was placed on academic probation for the following year.
Being put on academic probation was a huge failure for me and I lost a lot of confidence in myself. I remember asking myself every day ‘Am I smart enough? Am I aiming too high? Is this for me?’
Despite these doubts, I kept working hard. I had to keep moving forward. What else was I supposed to do? During my second semester of graduate school, I took an undergraduate class so that I could really understand the concepts that I had failed to grasp in the graduate course. At the beginning of my second year, I re-took the graduate class and, finally, passed. No more academic probation. It was certainly a relief, but things didn’t get easier after that.
During that same semester, I had a science literature exam in my research group. For the exam, my advisor and everyone in the lab tested my understanding of forty-five research papers to make sure I had the knowledge required for working there. For a month, I read and re-read three to four papers a day and constantly discussed them with my colleagues. I worked very hard, but again, I wasn’t rewarded for my hard work. I only partially passed. I had to write a review paper to make sure I understood the concepts to fully pass the test.
I felt like I’d failed again. I continued to ask myself – ‘Is graduate school the place for me? Am I smart enough to be here?’ These doubts plagued me.
Two weeks later, I had my preliminary exams. Preliminary exams, or “prelims”, consist of two parts. The first part is a written research proposal of your thesis work and the second part is an oral defense of the proposal to a committee of faculty.
I worked very hard on my proposal. I thought about it for several months. I studied the relevant literature. I wrote draft after draft. I stayed late in the lab trying to get as many results as possible to include in my proposal.
But, I didn’t pass.
I couldn’t believe it. When my advisor told me I didn’t pass, I thought he was joking.
I was very frustrated. I had put in so much time, effort and dedication.
Not passing prelims crushed my self-confidence. I thought to myself, ‘Maybe I am not smart enough to be in graduate school, to be in this department or to be in this research lab. Maybe this isn’t the place for me.’ I thought about this over and over again.
Getting a PhD degree is my dream. I left my country, family and loved ones to pursue my dream. But my dream was getting too hard and frustrating. I felt like I’d failed three times in a row without any success and I felt I was behind the rest of my class more and more each semester.
Even though I was depressed, upset and disappointed, I trusted my heart. I set my eyes on the future and I gave myself another chance at prelims. Finally, six months later I passed!
Finally, after almost two years and several failures, I succeeded in achieving part of my dream. I am glad I never gave up!
As my coach said to me after listening to this, ‘Yes, you need to be ready to fail and get up again. That is persistence.’ Persistence is one of the keys to success, she told me once. She advised me ‘Sometimes things don’t work out as you planned, but you need to trust yourself and try again and, maybe, try a different angle if necessary, but never give up. And, do not compare yourself to others, because each person is taking his own path, a different path than you are.’
The transformational coach, Colleen Miller, gave similar advice in a workshop on building confidence last month when she said, ‘Don’t be afraid to fail. If you are working on preventing failure, you will fail. If you are working on succeeding, you will succeed. So, think about what is working in your life, stay focused on your success! And, trust it will happen!’ She also recommended, ‘Be present with your failures. Be prepared to fail so you are not afraid of it. You need to fail, to learn and to know how it feels, in order to prevent it.’
I think we should ask ourselves more often- ‘What is your dream that you want to achieve? Why are you here? What are your goals?’
Go for it! And, if you fail, try again!
Women in STEM 