“I don't know you. You live in another country, Honestly, what do you expect? I would invite you to fly to the US and work in my lab sight unseen?” This was an email from a prof of Clinical Psych at one of the top 20 unis of the world when I emailed them for a research internship/assistantship.

Similar to the one above, I’ve faced rejections from about 50 research labs before getting research internships at Cambridge, LSE, Ashoka and Lady Shri Ram College.

I have not been selected for research internships at many prestigious institutes like IIT Delhi, Stanford, UChicago, Harvard, Columbia, UNC, etc. for various reasons:

Some universities required their interns to have extensive research experience.

Some did not accept students who were not from their institutes as interns

Some only accepted candidates who had work authorization in their country; and so on.

If I had given up my search for research internships after not getting selected so many times, I wouldn’t have secured the research internship at Cambridge!

If you’ve ever given up on your applications after facing many rejections, you have engaged in learned helplessness.

It’s when you give up on a task after multiple unsuccessful or stressful outcomes.

Here’s how I prevent myself from engaging in learned helplessness: I believe that Efforts > >>>>Outcome

Instead of thinking about how I didn’t get selected, I think about how I did my best at the application.

What keeps me motivated to keep applying is not the outcome of my application, it is the fact that I did my best at this application, and I will keep doing so for all my other applications! :D

P.S. I did report the email of the Clinical Psych professor to the Head of the Department, who simply said that teaching during Covid has been stressful for the faculty, apologized, and hoped that I’ll consider their uni for future studies.