Transcript

Jennifer: Taking Small Steps

Looking back now at the end of my PhD, having just defended, I think the thing that got me to the end, ultimately, was just showing up every day. I think that that’s one of the hardest things about graduate school, is that nothing moves fast. And the way that you get– that your work eventually amounts to something is just by having all of your gradual progress eventually add up to something a lot more.

And so one little thing that I started doing with myself to help with this was telling myself that I needed to get at least one thing done every day. And just getting something done, that was accomplishment, even if it didn’t work, but if I could set up this assay or read this paper or whatever it might be, as long as I at least did one thing.

And I think keeping that in mind and knowing that overnight things might not change, but that if you do always show up and always get something done, that eventually it will be something is important. And I think it helped me. And at the time, I didn’t know that it would ever amount to anything. But it does.

Thanks to Our Partners

Community Wellness, FAIL!, MindHandHeart, MITell, Office of Graduate Education GradSupport, Student Support Services (S3)

If you are interested in learning more about Flipping Failure or would like to contribute your story, please contact flippingfailure@mit.edu.

The content on this site was assembled and is maintained by MIT’s Teaching and Learning Lab.