Tiyya Geiger | Failure as navigation

Silently standing at a family reunion in a sea of those who speak a language that you claim but do not understand feels like being an imposter. For those who do not know their native tongue, staying silent is the only option when surrounded by the language of another. Similarly, the hesitation to speak up at Penn, where a fear of failure enables a culture that stigmatizes it and encourages shaming, leaves us feeling as if silence is the only option when you lack the right words. 

Given that languages are a tool, failure is a language that students should be taking advantage of to navigate their experience at Penn. Failing to engage at a social event but listening to the conversations around you to improve for the next time is using failure as a tool. Failing an exam and reviewing the concepts you missed as a form of revision is co-opting failure as a study method. If failure is such a core aspect of the college experience, why are we ashamed to embrace it?

Penn’s school culture is characterized by its relentless pressure. We feel like we are constantly competing against each other, ourselves, and the clock. Obtaining perfect exam grades during midterm season and securing a summer internship before the school year starts are part of the often impossible demands that one accepts when they agree to attend Penn. However, this culture is married to the idea that if you are not doing these things, not only are you doing something wrong, but you should keep it to yourself. In this way, Penn Face perpetuates imposter syndrome. When everyone around you seems to have it all figured out, you’re left comparing yourself to your peers and wondering where you went wrong in securing a picturesque lifestyle lined with an extensive LinkedIn experiences section.

The assumption that everyone has the next four years of their lives set in stone opens the door of shame for those who do not bend to the culture of Penn Face. We are shamed into thinking failure is not okay because we are supposed to line up with the achievements of our peers without acknowledging the different circumstances among us. Doing this ignores the benefits of failure, which are nothing short of extensive for young college students with an undeveloped prefrontal lobe. 

Educational studies have long categorized failure as a learning pathway which emphasizes achievement rather than performance. Failure promotes experimentation which can lead to new avenues of viewing the same problem, the time of which the average student believes takes too long in Penn’s fast-paced world. Penn’s focus on quick and efficient performance rather than achievement is what holds us back from being more successful, happier versions of ourselves that make the most out of the college experience, a large part of which is learning how to fail. The narrative is that failure is equated to weakness when, in reality, encountering failure builds the resilience we need to enter a post-Penn world. There are no Career Services or Weingarten Centers outside of Penn’s campus working for you as an individual to reach your goals. Failure teaches us how we went wrong and can move forward from there; it forces us to take a breath and reflect in a way that we often don’t allow ourselves to. Attending an elite college means that many of us cannot afford failure for personal, familial, or financial reasons, but this simply isn’t realistic. We need to fail so we can be better for ourselves, and those around us. 

Penn strives to equip a generation of leaders. Arguably, “the best leaders are humble leaders” as only those who bounce back from failure have the intellectual prowess to utilize their limitations as a means for growth. To create the best leaders, Penn students, faculty, and advisors should not shame us away from failure. Take a class you know you might fail, go to the social event where you might not fit in — it’s okay. Doing so can only give you something to learn from. 

Those who stand in the family reunion silently wishing they could understand the perceived gibberish of another language may find solace in the fact that failure is universal. You may not speak the language of your peers, your family, or community, but you speak the language of the world. Through using failure as a language to navigate the world, you participate in your entirety. 

TIYYA GEIGER is a College first year studying political science from Lancaster, PA. Her email address is tiyyag@sas.upenn.edu.