Learning from Failure in Academic Life: Resilience, Feedback, and a Culture of Growth

GraduateCenter^LMU Online Workshop for Doctoral Candidates

Mistakes are inevitable in research, yet academic culture often makes it difficult to handle them openly and constructively. This online workshop explores what a healthy culture of learning from failure looks like in practice and what it takes to build such a culture, both individually and within a team or institution. The workshop combines reflection with practical work. Participants examine their own relationship with mistakes and setbacks, explore the emotional dimensions of failure in academic contexts, including perfectionism and impostor syndrome, and practice concrete strategies for giving and receiving feedback constructively. The workshop also looks outward: what structural features of academic culture make open and constructive responses to failure difficult, and what is actually within reach to change?

A particular strength of this workshop is its crosscultural and interdisciplinary dimension. When participants come from different national or disciplinary backgrounds, the workshop draws on this diversity to explore how attitudes toward failure and feedback vary across contexts and what different perspectives can offer each other.

Workshop topics:

• Mistakes and setbacks as opportunities for learning: reframing and working with failure
• Emotional resilience: dealing with shame, perfectionism, and impostor syndrome in academia
• Giving and receiving feedback constructively
• Contributing to a healthier culture of learning and growth in teams and institutions

Language of workshop: English

Target group: Doctoral candidates of LMU Munich (the number of participants is limited)

Certificate of attendance: Participants will receive a certificate of attendance from the GraduateCenter^LMU.