This Princeton professor posted his CV of failures for the world to see

Published On: August 29, 2016 01:38 PM NPT By: Agencies


United States, Aug 29: Johannes Haushofer, the Princeton psychology professor shared his CV of failure on Twitter for the world to see.

It includes sections titled "Degree programs I did not get into," "Research funding I did not get" and "Paper rejections from academic journals." he doesn't think it is necessary to fail in order to succeed. “I do think we learn from failures, but I’m not convinced anyone would be worse off if they didn’t have any,” Haushofer said.

His CV of failures was inspired by a 2010 Nature article by Melanie Stefan, a lecturer at the School of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Edinburgh. She suggested that keeping a visible record of your rejected applications can help others to deal with setbacks.

“I’m hoping that it will be a source of perspective at times when things aren’t going well, especially for student and my fellow young researchers,” he said.

"Most of what I try fails, but these failures are often invisible, while the successes are visible. I have noticed that this sometimes gives others the impression that most things work out for me," Princeton assistant professor of psychology and public affairs Johannes Haushofer wrote on the CV.

Projecting only success and never recognizing failure has damaging effects, Haushofer wrote. So he decided to do something about it. He's among a number of other professionals who have posted their CVs of failures in an effort to change people's self-perception

Haushofer, a Prize fellow in Economics at Harvard who has been working at Princeton for two years, said he was “very surprised” by the reaction the resume has received online, especially from students and other young researchers.

Haushofer’s post was shared 770 times on Twitter, liked more than 700 times and republished in many UK and US national publications.

 


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