By: Elizabeth DiEmanuele
“We often don’t realize how resilient we can be,” says Kerri Latham, career counsellor at the Student Success Centre. “The truth is, the more times you fail, the easier it is to try.”
For the Student Success Centre, providing students with the resources and supports needed to develop their resiliency in university is important. One piece of this work is normalizing failure, uncertainty and other factors that contribute to wanting to give up on a goal, project, idea, or dream.
As Jenna Storey, academic skills program coordinator at the Student Success Centre, says, “Students often encounter challenges in achieving their academic goals. Resiliency in academics is about bouncing back after these challenges, and also recognizing and working through them by incorporating better academic and personal management skills.”
Most recently, the Centre led a digital campaign called #StickWithIt, a resiliency campaign that responded to student experiences the Centre addresses in its regular roster of programs, services and workshops. Staff have also participated in the CFMU’s MorningFile show, covering topics from Thriving in Academic Uncertainty to Developing Career Resilience.
In Kerri’s role, resiliency is an ongoing conversation and practice. Whether it’s through her one-on-one appointments, a career and employment session, or a Career Planning Group, one thing is clear: there is a shared uncertainty for many students around what they are going to do and where they are going to go next.
Kerri shares, “Though there are expectations, reflecting on your own priorities can help you stay grounded to pursue a direction that is best for you. Try not to get swayed too much by what others are doing. Know yourself and honour your own path.”
Knowing yourself does not necessarily mean “know your passion.” As Kerri suggests, “This puts a lot of false expectations on students, but the main thing is to pay attention to those seeds of interests and allow them to grow. Though it might feel like everyone has it figured out, there is always change, uncertainty and new directions. It’s okay to not know right now – uncertainty is to be expected.”
For students focused on what’s next, Kerri recommends breaking big decisions into smaller chunks; and when job searching, focusing more on the opportunities and skills students want to develop. She also encourages students to use their strengths and supports, like family, friends or mentors.
The good news is: students don’t have to go through it alone. The Student Success Centre is a place for students to explore, from the moment they accept their offer of admission and up to ten years after graduation. Upcoming sessions include:
Register for workshops or a career counselling appointment on OSCARplus.
Visit studentsuccess.mcmaster.ca to learn more.
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By: Alex Killan
Between excitement, uncertainty and fear about the future, almost every undergraduate will experience massive moments of self-doubt, feelings of failure and fear. It happens at every level — the first years feel it as they transition into the world of post-secondary education, and the graduating students feel it as they approach the end of one chapter in their educational journeys.
Our fear of failure is paralyzing and it stops us from taking risks. We prefer to stay with things that we know we are good at, things that we understand and things that give us confidence and the opportunity for success. Our fear of failure stops us from trying new things, prevents growth and development and leads to the development of a narrow skill set. Yet, we often forget that significant success often comes from many attempts and many failures. Ultimately, by emphasizing linear and rapid professional success, society and its inhabitants have failed each other.
To this end, meritocracy, the idea that success is based on merit, is a blessing and a curse of our society. From a young age, we are told that if we are passionate enough, creative enough and determined enough, we will succeed. From this approach, it naturally follows that if you fail, you simply did not work hard enough. The responsibility of failure is placed on the individual and as such, the idea of meritocracy, if not examined critically, can be extremely toxic in the context of personal success and failure. Though hard work is an important factor to success, we need to acknowledge the role that context, luck and privilege play in success.
Planned happenstance, a theory of career planning, acknowledges that in many cases, success is not linear and logical; an individual’s career path can be altered by one opportunity or one new contact. Within this framework, failure can be a positive thing. For example, failing a course can indicate that subject may not be for you, and prompt you to explore another area. Getting fired may lead to another job that brings you greater fulfillment.
On social media platforms, we are constantly bombarded with the success of others. Accepting personal failure becomes difficult. Approaching failure as an opportunity for growth, reflection, and exploration is nearly impossible; we cannot capture it nicely in a photograph.
But really, what is success? Upon reflection, we realize that it is challenging to define. It is a deeply personal concept that we are not often encouraged to define. As such, we may spend significant positions of our life chasing something that we do not really want. No matter what your path to your personal success, accepting failure as an integral part of it is critical.
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Christopher Joannou / The Silhouette
For as long as I can recall, higher education has generally been perceived to be directly correlated to success.
Until now, I saw no reason to question that. But as a current university student, I’m beginning to wonder if I should.
The government tells us that a degree increases your opportunity of getting a job. In other words, education is the key to your success.
Our parents tell us the same. It doesn’t leave you with much of an option, does it? All this basically tells me is, go to university and get a degree, or be unsuccessful.
I believe that being educated is one the keys to success, and that by following rules and passing exams you’ll do fine, but how can school expand your knowledge and improve your education if, for the most part, all it does is force us to cram information into our heads to pass an exam, only to walk out of the exam and forget almost all of it?
For the most part, exams don’t even allow us to showcase our knowledge; they use multiple choice questions, which are really meant for making things more efficient to mark rather than helping us to learn.
Multiple choice not only kills the creativity of an individual, but it forces us to conform to a set of answers designed in a way to set you up for failure.
All that I’ve learned from multiple choice is that, when I don’t know an answer, just pick C and that for the most part, it’s a game of luck – all the answers sound the same.
Education should be about inspiring one’s mind, not just filling it.
As a university student, I spend 50 per cent of my time trying to study and the other 50 per cent trying to avoid it.
Not all of the procrastination is wasted time, though. I saw a quote on Facebook by Albert Einstein, and it states, “education is not the learning of fact, but the training of the mind to think,” and I don’t think that universities are doing a good job at allowing us to think.
But one of the main questions regarding education that strikes me is: does success in the school system correlate to success in life?
Or is the school system simply geared towards fact retention and regurgitation that’s only going to push me through to get my degree? To be blunt, browsing the Internet expands my knowledge more than sitting in a lecture attempting to stay awake.
University used to be the product of the individuals whose parents could afford to support them throughout school. It was an esteemed level of exclusive education that required outstanding marks.
But now, the system has been broken wide open and tertiary education is available to a far greater number of students. Really, anyone who wants to go to university can go, regardless of marks or family status. Sadly, Universities have become businesses in a market place, and thanks to the evolution of university fees, students have become nothing but customers.
Life is long, and we spend all of it learning. To assume that all the learning much happen with a university degree in the year 2013 is one of the greatest mistakes to make.
The exclusivity of a university degree, which was once the core of its intrinsic value, no longer exists, and University has now become more of an expected requirement than an exclusive right. A university degree has become more expensive, and at the same time become more plentiful and less likely to be a cause of profitable employment.
By: Oskar Niburski
The first time I experienced success, it was most likely a relief. Being unable to walk makes you think you are stuck in one place, slowly ticking away from the dynamic lilt of life's rhythm. Cemented to the floor, or more accurately, concreted in my own poop, I babbled like a baby. Maybe because I was one. Maybe because I was angry about being unable to stand. More likely, though, because I was left to sit with my own failure.
Looking back, it might have not been my fault. Some might say that. I wouldn't though. Because while I may have fell and fell and fell again, I eventually learned to waddle back and forth, then to stand, and before I knew it, success was at my feet. I am told the first time I walked, I laughed a precocious, little giggle. I think this is because I learned at a very young age that failures may not be your own doing, but success – the ability to try regardless of the outcome – can only be achieved by you and you alone.
This only lasted so long, however. I did not exactly hit the floor running. Instead, I hit the floor after inching my way, slowly, carefully and hesitantly. I still have a scar on my chin from falling my first time. I thank Newton's third law for that one.
These limited successes continued as I grew against the gravity of these physical laws. I kept experiencing failure in new ways, ways I didn’t know possible. Whenever I tried some task, it seemed more likely that I would fail. For example, I failed my G1 driving test twice, was rejected by every girl I asked to the grade eight graduation dance and have never been able to remember my grandmother's phone number.
These failures are probably inconsequential in the holistic view of my life, but at their present respective moments, I could not feel any worse. Or at least, my grandma made me feel as much when I asked who was calling.
Now, when I am apparently wiser only because I am older, when I have reached failure in a way I could never imagine, I am trying to understand how I had the gallantry to get up and start walking, especially when failure is only one small step away.
I guess, even now, I find myself asking why the chicken crossed the world, only to remember that the joke ends with some form of macabre failure.
Someone could tell me that the joke goes on, so it's a happy ending of sorts. I think that's what makes things worse: the vexation due to failure is thus only inflamed by execrable platitudes and banal statements. To those who say, “You will get stronger,” know I don’t feel any stronger. For those who argue that, “You can keep going,” understand that I want to run away. And when people tell me that, “Everything will get better,” be aware that at this present moment, it couldn’t be any worse.
It is only natural, though. When we face failure as a third-perspective body, we can only offer these trite statements. We see the sun, and are reminded that it sets and rises each day, regardless of what happened the last. But these words are empty and to the sufferer, it is as if we are offering them ice on a winter’s day. We do not know their troubles. We cannot offer a blanket statement that will make everything alright. So, because we are so unaccustomed to dealing with other people’s problems, we find ourselves at a loss for words and consequently relegate all our own wisdom to silly clichés and statements.
Do not get me wrong, there are people who will try to take your failure as their own. It is as if they did the action and they alone must deal with its ramifications. To them – we the failures – are eternally grateful.
But for the most part, when you find yourself in the worst of times, most people proffer words of little encouragement. At times, you may even be indignant of this. They don’t understand what you are going through. I don’t understand what you are going through. But what I do understand is that we failed, and we will keep doing so.
Yet, we will also succeed. Regardless of the struggles, no matter how much failure is sitting around you and despite the fact that you feel that it will only get worse, that road will eventually end. And baby, when it does, it will be one big relief.
Who knows? We might even giggle.
