A few weeks ago, I applied to a student forum that would take place halfway across the globe. I learned about it pretty close to the deadline, but I got all my transcripts together, wrote a letter, got my references, and got my application in in time. I knew my grades were high enough. I had an interesting letter. I dropped off my perfect, organized dossier, practically beaming with the knowledge that I was the perfect candidate.
I was promptly rejected in an email that started with “Dear student….”. No name. Never a good sign. It was copied and pasted. It was suggested that I pass by the office to pick up the transcripts I’d had to pay for since they clearly wouldn’t be needed, and I thought, Well, shit. I am garbage personified.
My heartbeat quickened as I needlessly read the rest of the email, looking for some nonexistent glimmer of hope, or a just kidding, you’re in! It only got worse with every following sentence. It was like I’d been stung.
When the forum coordinator went through her pile of nos to find mine, she told me she was really impressed and was truly sorry I didn’t make the cut. She urged me to apply to other things. I stared down at the transcripts, no longer sheltered in envelopes that said “invalid if opened.” Now they’re just a bunch of papers that I clutch onto, my chipped nail polish seemingly becoming an allegory for my life. For a tiny moment, they feel worthless.
The words doctoral studies, scholarship, distinction all lost their meaning -- they weren’t enough. I was not enough. My imposter syndrome went into overdrive: what was I doing, thinking I had a place in academia?
At the same time, I feel an urge to be more persistent than ever. I want to apply to everything.
I have to spend an evening wallowing in self-pity first. As I write this, I’m sitting at my desk, sulking, belting out all the dismal lyrics to Ed Sheeran’s + in a way that borders on masochism.
For the sake of my sanity, I’m choosing to believe I didn’t get this opportunity because something better is going to present itself. But something better won’t just happen. I have to go get it.
Fellow readers, students, peers: never stop persisting when it comes to opportunities like this. Apply for every opening you hear of, and if you don’t get it, keep trying. Grad students: stand up for your research. Interview the people you want to interview. If someone doesn’t answer your email, call them. Wear your rejection letters like armor, because in breaking you down, they make you stronger.
Not throwing your hat in the ring is the worst thing you could do. It’s better to try and not get something than to obsess over whether you’d be chosen if you had just applied.
All of this isn’t to say that being rejected doesn’t totally suck. It does. But I think the healthiest thing to do in this situation is to take your rejection and turn it into something valuable. It’s all in how you look at things, right?
