Abstract
Success is the result of planning, hard work, determination, foresight, and a little bit of luck. Unfortunately, nobody has thought to pave the road to success. Although failure can be discouraging and time-consuming, it presents incredible learning opportunities—the biggest difference between those who succeed and those who abandon their projects lies in their response to adversity. This article reviews events undertaken by the Regional Student Groups (RSGs) in India and Argentina, the problems they encountered, and what can be learned from them. RSG-India attempted to organize an online scientific meeting (also known as a virtual conference) with geographically dispersed stakeholders, a totally new concept for them. RSG-Argentina tackled the challenge of organizing a two-day symposium, their first event ever. Some of the complications they faced were easy to fix, others led to the cancellation of activities, and all of them resulted in valuable lessons. The main goal of this article is to highlight, through their experiences, the universal importance of a healthy panel of contingency plans.
Highlights
The Upside of Failure: How Regional Student Groups Learn from Their Mistakes
This article reviews events undertaken by the Regional Student Groups (RSGs) in India and Argentina, the problems they encountered, and what can be learned from them
Winston Churchill once said ‘‘Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.’’ Failure is a crucial opportunity to learn and develop
Summary
Winston Churchill once said ‘‘Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.’’ Failure is a crucial opportunity to learn and develop. The first national meeting was going to be a two-day gathering with workshops, a round table discussion about the lack of private initiatives in the field of computational biology, and a student symposium where undergraduate students could present their work. They planned to sell merchandise to raise money for future activities. While the four workshops they ended up offering were a far cry from their initial ambitious plan, they learned to work as a team The time they organize an event they will not be beginners anymore, and they surely will not be making any of these mistakes again
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