EAST LANSING — Rejection is part of any successful career — and of Caitlin Kirby’s skirt.

The Michigan State University graduate student wore a skirt she made using rejection letters she received through the course of her doctoral program in earth and environmental sciences while defending her dissertation last week.

It took 17 rejection letters to make the skirt, rejections from scholarships, academic journals and conferences. To make the skirt, she printed them out and folded each one into a fan, connecting them in rows until they resembled a skirt. Kirby still had many left over.

“The whole process of revisiting those old letters and making that skirt sort of reminded me that you have to apply to a lot of things to succeed,” she said. “A natural part of the process is to get rejected along the way.”

Those rejections and what she learned from them weighed heavy on her mind when the day of her dissertation defense came. Kirby wore the skirt to continue the work that she, her adviser and colleagues did to normalize rejection.

Rejection can be disappointing, she said, but it can also lead to bigger and better things.

“It seems counterintuitive to wear your rejections to your last test in your Ph.D.,” Kirby said. “But we talked about our rejections every week and I wanted them to be a part of it.”

Rejection can be a positive thing, said Julie Libarkin, Kirby’s adviser and an MSU professor of earth and environmental science.

She encourages her students to apply for every opportunity that comes across their desk. Getting into the habit of applying for things and getting used to the feeling of being rejected gives her students the experience they need to gain acceptance.

“It’s a learning experience,” Libarkin said. “It’s part of life.”

All of her students have been rejected from something, and it led to gains in the end, she said. Kirby and another student repeatedly applied for small grants but kept getting rejected. Along the way, their proposals kept getting better, leading them to submit for an even larger grant that they secured.

“All of my students have been rejected from something and all of my students have earned significant accomplishments,” Libarkin said.

Kirby ended up securing a grant through the Fulbright Program, an international educational exchange program that builds connections between United States citizens and people from other countries, for research on urban agriculture.

Many students who come to MSU never really faced rejection, said Karin Hanson, director of employer relations for the MSU Career Services Network. They’ve always gotten the jobs they applied for, whether it be a high school job or their first job on campus.

It can be tough for them face rejection for the first time, she said, but it ultimately makes them stronger.

“When I think about rejection, I think about how it builds grit,” Hanson said.

Kirby will leave for Germany in January. She’ll start applying for jobs once she gets back.

“So I’m gearing up to receive a few more rejection letters along the way,” she said. “Maybe I’ll make a longer skirt.”

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Contact Mark Johnson at 517-377-1026 or at majohnson2@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter at @ByMarkJohnson.