<p>I spent my entire summer at a “prestigious summer program” doing hands on research and hoping to make Siemens semi-finalist, but I knew I failed when I check the list of semi-finalist this afternoon. I do research primarily for gaining experiences but my failure of making Simens disappointed me so much. From the beginning, I knew it was going to be a tough competition, and I was falsely confident about my project, but at the end everything just falls apart. I want to make Siemens so I can show my parents that I can get the job done, but all my promises now become ********. Though my parents never gave me directions or set any goals for me, I always wanted to be the toughest dude on the court, the smartest kid in the class. Regardless of what I have done in the past, failing to make Siemens semi-finalist makes me small. I dreamed a million times how I would celebrate if I make it to semi, but now I felt nothing but lock myself in my room. </p>
<p>I am not someone can’t handle failure. In fact, I’ve been rejected by an elite private school twice, I’ve been struggling to play garbage time in my AAU team, I’ve been failing to make MOP for years. Honestly, none of my failure in the past is comparable to my failure to make Siemens. For some reason, not becoming semi-finalist made me just want to screw around my life and **** around all day, I even lost my incentives to do all the work. I tried so hard to erase the memory of Siemens in me, but the harder I try the more aggregated grief I get. It’s not like I am afraid to tell my parents or afraid of getting scorned my friends. In fact, most people in my life don’t give a **** about science research. But I do feel like I have failed my life, at least I will never be able to make Siemens, ever.</p>
<p>I am so sorry you are sad about Siemens. You posted on the parents forum so here goes…I would guess there is not a single parent who hasn’t at some point in their youth felt like an abject failure. Many tears have been shed by parents over something they wished, wanted and worked for with all their heart and soul. It takes awhile to get over the “why them and not me” self absorption. It does take awhile to get over the disappointment so allow yourself to wallow for awhile. But if that feeling doesn’t go away in a few days talk to your parents or a teacher or someone to get your feeling out in the open. Sometimes those feelings are easier to deal with or confront when you have to actually say the words to another person out loud as opposed to posting on an anonymous message board.</p>
<p>And you have gained experience. I know it hurts now. I’m sorry you didn’t make Siemans, but I can pretty much guarantee that it won’t be such a big deal a year from now. You are not a failure. Everyone experiences disappointments. It’s how you learn to deal with the disappointments that really counts.</p>
So do you think everyone who failed to make the semi-finalist, which I assume is almost everyone, is ‘small’? I hope not. And if you don’t think they’re ‘small’, then why do you think you should be considered ‘small’ by anyone, including yourself? Not everyone can be first or a finalist. The important point is that you participated, which is more than most people do, and hopefully gained some good experience as a result. Use that experience to help you in the future.</p>
<p>Sorry this didn’t work for you. I’m guessing you often have very high expectations hypsmc (does that happen to stand for Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, MIT, Caltech?) because those too are super high choices “for everyone”. Time heels many wounds, but your next goal (your college applications) may include some super elite college and I suggest you balance your list with a range of possibilities. Save yourself from that all-or-nothing experience.</p>
<p>First of all, I am sorry for your disappointment. It’s not easy when things don’t go as you planned. That being said, I am assuming that since you were involved in the Siemens competition and spent your summer at a “prestigious summer program” that you are a high achieving student. My guess is that you haven’t experienced many failures academically, if ever. One thing I know for sure is that “failure” will be experienced by everyone at one point or another in their lives. I was brought up to know that no matter how good I was at something, the possibility existed that there was someone better than I. I found this to be true, but you know what? Life went on and I was happy with who I was. You have two choices… You can either wallow in despair, fold your tent, pack up, go home and refuse to play OR you can rise to the occasion and take it as incentive to improve. I’m an ex-athlete and I always liken this type of situation to a match. Just because you are down 3-5 in the third set doesn’t mean the match is over. You just fight for one point at a time and see what happens in the end. Sometimes you win, sometimes you don’t, but you always give 100% effort in the competition. Remember too - it’s not where you start but how you finish! Your life is just beginning. Do you really think being a semifinalist is the be all end all of your life? Trust me. It’s not. How you handle this set back is up to you. The choice is yours…</p>
<p>Eh, it sounds like you’re planning on doing research as a career, or something in the hard sciences/maths. Failure is a good thing for you, if I’m right about your career goals, you just have to figure it out (which can take a lot of time). Realize that this may happen a lot… not everyone wins the Siemens, not everyone gets to do internships at Google/Microsoft/NSA, not everyone gets the NSF fellowship to grad school or Rhodes/Marshall/Gates scholar awards, not everyone gets hired by Ivy league as faculty or by the DOE to work in the government labs, and not everyone wins the Field’s medal or Nobel prize.</p>
<p>And since I mentioned the Nobel Prize, one of the winners for this year’s physics prize had a lot of trouble with math and theoretical physics throughout his undergraduate years and made very average grades. Turns out he had some brilliant ideas, got a little lucky, and won the most prestigious award in physics.</p>
<p>Persistence is a critical trait for a scientist. Lots more NSF grants get turned down than accepted. Lots of papers get rejected–some multiple times–before they get published. Get used to it.</p>
<p>But when I get a bad result back, I do allow myself some rolling in self-pity/loathing time, and then get back at it.</p>
<p>I think many of us can share your pain, reflecting back on such losses. Try to appreciate the pain that you feel right now- which WILL pass, I assure you!- as the small price you pay to be a high achieving person. This current sting is probably what propels you to work as hard as you do (to avoid it). And that hard work is what will get you to your lifelong goals. Seriously. Not a single successful person has not had similar set backs. You just have to remember YOU are not your grades, or your awards, or your achievements. You were the same person you were yesterday, whether you win or not. </p>
<p>It’s okay to be down now, and lick your wounds, but you will come back up. Just give it time. Each day will probably get a bit better. The really hard part about being young is the present always feels so long and permanent. But it really will pass. </p>
<p>And if you want to be a scientist, try to think of this experience, if you can, as good your development and ‘training’ because it will be fundamental to your success to deal with setbacks, failures and LOTS of rejection. Just the nature of the business. Experiments screw up. Barriers show up. Arbitrary bad decisions affecting us are made by others. Results often do not come out as planned. And most top journals have a 90-95% rejection rate. Even the most prolific scholars have lots and lots of blind (anonymous) reviews trashing their hard work, and everyone - everyone!- has rejection letters from journals. It is a central part of the job (unfortunately). It hurts, no doubt about it, but with experience you learn to detach who you are from your output somewhat so the sting is not so bad.</p>
<p>Maybe you’re disappointed about the Siemens because you saw it as an accomplishment that would ensure your admission to hypsmc. It didn’t happen…so move on to working hard on your college apps and take your chances like the thousands of other applicants. Good luck!</p>
<p>I am sorry that you are so disappointed but that is the reality of entering competitions like Siemans…there will be a winner. The fact that you entered and did your best should be something that not only you but your parents should be very proud of. When your whole life has been centered on being the best at everything it is hard to land on your feet after realizing there will be someone who can do something better. I know you probably don’t want to hear this this, but you need to get some balance back into your life so these little dissapointments don’t shake your confidence or feelings of self worth. Your value as a person is not measured by what you do but by how you get there. If you are meant to be involved in reasearch than you need to get used to disappointment and sometimes failure. How could you expect to forge ahead if everytime you come across a roadblock you want to give up? Move on and go work on your applications and leave yourself some time to go outside and enjoy the beautiful fall weather. When your life is balanced you could put everything in perspective.</p>
<p>hyp…have no idea what your research was, but perhaps you can submit it to the YES scholarship if it is an epidemiology type project. YES deadline isnt until Feb 2011</p>
<p>If you do research primarily for gaining experiences, consider this: try doing research to learn something that will advance human knowledge. When you view the purpose of your work to be making yourself great, that is one thing. When you view the purpose of your work to be helping humanity, you will be on a better path. Reviewers of your work can tell the difference and it will affect their assessment of your work. Nobody really wants to give prizes to people whose goal is to be smart, tops, better than all the rest. They give prizes to people who in humility discover something to help others.</p>
<p>If you never make Siemens…so what? It doesn’t mean that you are not very good at what you do. You’re a little fish in a big pond. So many kids I know who were at the top of the heap in high school went on to college to find that there were other people who were smarter, richer, stronger athletes, better musicians, etc. It was a shock to them. They weren’t prepared to “compete” on a higher level. When you compete at Siemens, you are in the big pond. It would be to your advantage to get used to it. Your only other alternative is to stay in the small pond, and it doesn’t sound like you are the sort of person who wants that. ;)</p>
Here is a lesson I learned from my son that may help the OP and others in similar situations.</p>
<p>S1 was named a Siemens Semifinalist as a junior with a team project in genetics that also won first place at our states. He worked very hard on it. There were days that I don’t think he slept much. I watched him ran analysis after analysis on his laptop and wrote and rewrote lengthy reports. He was passionate about his work.</p>
<p>Fast forward to his senior year. By now he had four advanced level genetic/molecular bio classes under his belt, and another summer lab research experience. He knew a lot more in his field than before. He extended the prior year work on his own and worked at least as hard as last year. He felt his new work had more depth and focus than the last one. We thought he would cruise to another first place win at states and possibility even another Siemens prize.</p>
<p>To our surprise, he failed to win the states and later also failed to win Siemens. I didn’t know how hard this was for him until many days later he cried out after a heated exchange that not winning states hurt him more than I can imagine. One of the four judges gave him a very low mark because she couldn’t follow his explanation and did not understand his project, period. Three others gave him very high marks but because of this one low mark, he missed the first place prize. As for missing out on Siemens, he said although his project went deeper than the last one, it lacked application, and he reminded us that he had shared this concern with us going in. He was dejected for weeks.</p>
<p>We knew he can still try Intel, but he wasn’t in the mood after his states and Siemens results. His bio teacher encouraged him to go for it. She told him that judges at states were not all experts in the field and/or qualified to judge, and that judges for Intel are all professionals and may appreciate his work more. My wife and I also tried our best to cheer him on and he finally agreed to work on the Intel application.</p>
<p>While reorganizing his paper for Intel and searching for a better way to present his reseach, he realized that his data and analyses supported a new method of comparison that is faster than the standard methods currently in use. This revelation changed the focus of his paper. A few months later, he was named an Intel Semifinalist. </p>
<p>What happened here was that the failure forced him to consider other possibilities. He had to find ways to address his own concerns about the lack of application. The result was a much better paper supported by the same set of data. This new discovery also impressed a Nobel winner in an interview at his current college and secured him an internship position with the man. This would not have happened had he won states or Siemens, or had he refused to move on after his failure. Now he knows by experience failure can be seen as a way to a better future.</p>
<p>My husband (full professor at a med school) just missed getting a grant accepted last year - it was the very top of the pile of grants that didn’t get money in that category. He submitted the same grant this year except that he addressed all the concerns of the reviewers and he ended up with a lower score. That’s the life of a scientist. If you aren’t willing to live with being judged (occasionally what seems like unfairly) it’s not the right field for you.</p>
<p>Here goes: No one died here. No missing limbs. No life time of being a vegetable. </p>
<p>Cry for three days. That’s fine. Cry until the snot runs down your shirt front and you can’t believe a human being could cry so much. Then take a shower and eat some carbs. </p>
<p>I was left at the altar at 23. That was brutal. I fell down a mountain when I was 26 and became a paraplegic. That was worse. Today I have been married for 25 years to a darling man. I am a parent to two amazing kids. I have traveled all over the world and seen all sorts of amazing things (Tropical fish in the ocean! The Taj Mahal! Wild camels! A typhoon! Ducks that live in trees!). And I’m not done yet. </p>
<p>Olymom, I hope the OP comes back to read your post. You put everything in perspective in the kindest way possible. There is so much love in your post.</p>