"Looking into KAIST Students' 'Failures'... First Failure Week Event"

Starting from the 23rd, a 2-week event featuring
photo exhibitions, seminars, and other programs will be held

KAIST will designate the period from the 23rd of this month to the 3rd of next month as "Failure Week" and hold various events over two weeks.

As the first event organized by the KAIST Failure Research Institute focusing on failure, it will be filled with various programs such as photo exhibitions and seminars.

Photo Exhibition 'Moments of Failure Captured in Everyday Life' Exhibition Work Examples

On the first day of the event, the 23rd, a photo exhibition titled "Moments of Failure Captured in Daily Life" will be held in the lobby on the first floor of the Creative Learning Center at the Daejeon main campus.

Based on four themes?work, growth, life, and resilience?photos capturing moments when students felt failure in their daily lives along with notes recording their thoughts at the time will be exhibited together.

The works displayed in the photo exhibition were collected through a research program of the same name conducted by the Failure Research Institute in June. This research applied the method called "photo voice," which allows participants to express their values and thoughts through photos and explores them in depth.

Photo Exhibition 'Moments of Failure Captured in Everyday Life' Exhibition Work Examples

The program was designed to identify the characteristics of failure experienced by students and to seek healthy intervention methods, with 31 enrolled students participating.

An institute official stated, "During the data collection process, we confirmed that there is a certain universality in the sense of failure felt by participants, and at the same time, the same failure can be interpreted differently depending on perspective."

Out of about 360 collected failure scenes, 30 scenes that evoke empathy among members or contain important communal messages were selected for exhibition during the event period.

On the 1st of next month, the "Failure Society: Failed Assignment Boasting Contest," where students share their failure experiences in the form of stand-up comedy, will be held. Students will take the stage to present stories of failure not only in academic assignments but also in life challenges such as relationships and career paths.

On the 3rd, the "KAIST Failure Seminar" will be held, inviting Lisa Son, a professor in the Department of Psychology at Bernard College, Columbia University, USA, and Kim Su-an, a professor in the Department of Psychology at Sungkyunkwan University.

This failure lecture series shares experiences and perspectives from leaders in various fields, and in this seminar, they plan to discuss with the audience ways to deal with failure healthily.

Jo Sung-ho, director of the KAIST Failure Research Institute, said, "Failure and adversity exist in students' daily lives and life journeys, and within them, valuable lessons to learn together can be found."

He added, "I hope that through the various events prepared across the campus, this will be an opportunity to gain new perspectives and insights that can transform failure into nourishment for growth."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.