CV of Failures
See my CV of Failures
Failure Summary (Excerpt)
| Category | Description | Count & Notes |
| Paper rejections | Top-tier ML&AI conferences & journals | 30+ (ICLR, NeurIPS, ICML, KDD, AAAI, WSDM, SIGIR, etc.) |
| Journal rejections | Biomedical + ML journals | Multiple (CSBJ, IEEE JBHI, Briefings in Bioinformatics, etc.) |
| Travel & fellowship | Student travel awards, scholarships | 8+ attempts |
| Degree programs | PhD programs | 2 (KAIST Integrated PhD) |
Failure Timeline (Condensed)
| Year | Category | Venues & Programs | Count & Notes |
| 2018 | Scholarship | Kwanjeong Scholarship | 1 |
| 2019 | Degree programs | KAIST Integrated PhD | 1 |
| 2020 | Degree programs | KAIST Integrated PhD | 1 |
| 2021 | Conference papers | KDD, CIKM, IJCAI | 3 |
| 2022 | Conference + Journal | CIKM, KDD, JMLR, IEEE TITS | 4 |
| 2023 | Conference + Journal | CIKM, SIGIR, WSDM, AAAI, AISTATS, CSBJ, JBHI | 9+ |
| 2024 | Conference + Journal | NeurIPS, ICLR, AAAI, WSDM, CIKM, ICML, Nature MI, Nat. Comm. Materials | 15+ |
| 2025 | Conference + Awards | ICLR, ICML, IJCAI, SIGIR, AAAI, CIKM, travel awards | 10+ |
| 2026 | Conference papers | TheWebConf, WSDM, AAAI, LoG | 4 |
What is a CV of Failures
Inspired by Jia-Bin Huang's idea of a “CV of Failures”, this page presents my own Curriculum Vitae of Failures. It documents the rejections, setbacks, and unsuccessful attempts that have shaped my academic journey.
Huang originally introduced this concept in his “awesome-tips” repository, particularly in his post on “How to cope with paper rejection?”.
On Dealing with Rejection
How to cope with paper rejection?
— Jia-Bin Huang (@jbhuang0604) September 29, 2021
Rejection SUCKS! It feels awful that months of hard work did not pay off. 😠How do we hold a positive outlook when dealing with rejection?
A thread of lessons (learned from many rejections) 🧵
In his post, Huang encouraged researchers to keep a record of their failures:
Maintain a CV of failures!
You failed because you tried. Create a CV of failures to normalize these setbacks.
He later revisited this idea in 2020, emphasizing the importance of openly acknowledging failures:
Keep a CV of failure so that I have something to update no matter what the outcomes from job/scholarship/grant/paper submissions are. https://t.co/Vhw01dTrcx https://t.co/hST4syDaNd
— Jia-Bin Huang (@jbhuang0604) July 30, 2020
Why Share Failures?
To provide a more balanced and honest view of my academic trajectory
To normalize failure as an essential part of the learning and growth process
To encourage resilience, reflection, and long-term perseverance
Although this is a deeply personal document, I believe the idea of a failure CV is worth discussing more broadly. If you would like to share your own experiences or reflections, feel free to reach out.
As Huang noted, sharing our failures can be a “(tiny) contribution to academia”—helping others feel less alone in their struggles. In that spirit, I hope this page contributes to making academic culture more open, humane, and resilient.