“What are you doing this summer?”

These six words have always given me a bit of a panic attack over the past few years. “Nothing,” I think to myself as I try to refrain from speaking the words. “Just being a potato, that is all.”

As the school year comes to a close, it seems most everybody around me is finishing in stride with fancy, lucrative internships and experiences established for the summer. From consulting at Accenture to working for congressmen, these accomplishments are widely varied and numerous. But for me, I still have a few loose ends to tie up before I can fully relax.

Summer is an amazing time: the three months off from the university grind, designated for rest and relaxation, are crucial to continued success during the rest of the grueling academic year. It is a time for exploration, to dabble in the real world for a few months before heading back into the safety of the ivy hedges of the university campus. Most importantly, it is a time to catch up with friends and family, to make up for time lost during the academic year. With my junior year wrapping up, I am approaching my penultimate summer. It will be one of the last times that I will be able to relax and live before beginning the next phase of my life: applying to medical school — the giant leap toward my professional goals.

So why is it that I am particularly ashamed of my summer plans (or lack thereof)? In hopes of landing a perfect internship for the summer, I applied to numerous cancer research programs all over the country. I aimed to further explore my interests in scientific research, especially those that are applied to the diverse field of cancer treatment. After all, the numerous late nights spent studying in the library were bound to pay off somehow, right?

Well, in short, I was rejected from almost every program to which I applied.

Of course, I went through all the stages of reactions: from sadness to anger and denial. I even shed an internal tear or two. With this consistent beatdown, it was easy to take the rejections personally. Where did that hard work go? It certainly did not materialize in an easily observable, quantifiable form. I'm sure that the applicant pool was extremely competitive, and when I compared my accomplishments to those of my brilliant peers I certainly did not improve the situation.

After a little moping around helplessly, I picked myself back up. I even applied to a public-policy-based internship, something that I had been eyeing and considering for a long time.

Facing many rejections does not make each subsequent one any easier. It can be harder to recover from each fall, and each one hurts just as much as the last. Mourning a loss is a natural and necessary response. Although it is difficult, it is important to move on and remember that failure exists for a reason. It just makes the accomplishments much more meaningful and joyful.

In a sense, the ordeal has strengthened my resolve. It has driven me to work even harder and to dedicate myself to my work even if the results aren’t so immediate. Although I may still be salty in some regards, I remain strong and confident that my dedication and efforts will one day pay off. And hopefully, my future patients will notice, too.

If you are going through a similar phase in life, here are a few points to internalize. Failure does not define you. It is how you pick yourself up and dust yourself off that matters. And comparing yourself to others can also be dangerous. So if there is one thing I can take away from this experience, it is the following: Failure is a beautiful thing.