---
title: "Nicole’s guide to handling failure and rejection"
url: https://daily.dev/posts/nicole-s-guide-to-handling-failure-and-rejection-rw8ev45t7
source_url: https://quantumfrontiers.com/2026/05/20/nicoles-guide-to-handling-failure-and-rejection
type: article
source: "Quantum Frontiers"
published: 2026-05-21T00:33:48.975Z
updated: 2026-05-21T00:34:13.645Z
tags: ["career"]
reading_time: 6
upvotes: 1
comments: 0
language: en
---

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# Nicole’s guide to handling failure and rejection

**[Quantum Frontiers](https://daily.dev/sources/quantumfrontiers)** · 6 min read · 1 upvotes · 0 comments

## Summary

A quantum physicist shares a practical, step-by-step guide for recovering from professional failure and rejection in academia. Advice covers the immediate aftermath (limiting re-reading the rejection, lowering stress, reviewing past successes), a cooling-off period, seeking mentor perspective, charting a concrete path forward, and celebrating wins. Personal anecdotes include rejected internship applications, Rhodes Scholarship rejections, and a task that took 28 months and over 100 attempts to succeed.

## Full article

daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: <https://quantumfrontiers.com/2026/05/20/nicoles-guide-to-handling-failure-and-rejection>

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Tags: [#career](https://daily.dev/tags/career)

[View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/nicole-s-guide-to-handling-failure-and-rejection-rw8ev45t7)
