At University College Tilburg, we conducted a survey revealing that nearly a quarter of all students who drop out or who incur study delays do so at least partially due to personal, psychological, or psychiatric problems. These numbers are in line with national data on student well-being. This means that an alarming number of the young, promising, and intelligent students in our lecture halls experience stress and mental health problems and have difficulties in coping with setbacks and failure.

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​In response, we launched ‘The Resilience Project: Fail, Fail Again, Fail Better’ in September 2019, inspired by initiatives at Harvard, Princeton, and Stanford. Funded by a Comenius Senior Grant, The Resilience Project has been incorporated into the core curriculum of the Bachelor’s program of Liberal Arts and Sciences at UC Tilburg. The project was first introduced during the Education Bazaar 2019, where Dr. Tessa Leesen and Dr. Ellen Dreezens gave an interactive session on the Resilience Project.

 

Research demonstrates the prevalence of mental health issues among students, heightened by societal pressures and the culture of highlights and success portrayed on social media. The Resilience Project at UC Tilburg aims to increase students’ level of critical awareness of the importance attached to competitiveness and excellence in (higher) education and society at large. It also offers students tools to become more resilient in dealing with failures and setbacks and aims to normalize failure.

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​This webpage aims to share the educational resources developed within our project, making it particularly interesting for students grappling with stress and educators who want to support students and integrate our materials into their curriculum. 

 

For more information on the resilience project at Stanford University or initiatives at other prestigious universities, such as

‘The Success-Failure Project’ at Harvard University, please see: https://academicresilience.org.