26A – Celebrating Failure

Celebrating Failure

1. One time this past semester where I failed is in trying to get an internship at the Career Showcase. I knew I needed a summer internship but I was not proactive in preparing for the Career Showcase. In fact, I forgot it was even happening until my friend in the business school reminded me the day of. I ended up printing out my resume and rushing to the career fair and networking with dozens of employees. I thought I did a great job, but when I got home and emailed the recruiters I met I got zero emails back. Even with repeated communication I had 0 luck. Ultimately, I failed at finding a summer internship from the career fair, but was able to motivate myself to find a different internship from a different information session.

2. I learned from this experience that if you truly want something, you need to work hard for it. Even if I tried my best and did not get an internship, I would have been much happier with myself if I gave my absolute best. I also learned not to let failure define me; if I let all those denials define me, I would have never pushed to find the great internship I have now.

3. Failure is without a doubt hard. I think a lot of us have the mentality that failure is embarrassing and we need to avoid it at all costs. However, I think that failure is only negative if you do not learn from it. When you learn from a failure, it ultimately becomes a success because you have learned and grown from it. I used to handle failure poorly, but after being in college for a few years and making a lot of mistakes, I have learned to use failure to grow and not get caught up in the disappointment, but rather turn it into a positive. I think I am more likely to take a risk now rather than before this class. I see now how vital it is to be willing to take risks in order to create something successful, and therefore believe that I would be more willing to take a risk now after everything I have learned in ENT3003.