The road I was meant to take!

“I quit a fancy high paying job to do research which paid almost five times less because it was something I had dreamt of since I was 10.

In school I used to be good in Physics, Chemistry and English and these were the three options I had considered open in front of me. I still remember my twelfth grade Chemistry teacher writing in my slam book that one day she hoped to hear my name spoken of in the same breath as Raman, Chandrasekhar and Ramanujan. She might have overestimated my aptitude a little, but her words continue to inspire me still. My English teacher, on the other hand, was convinced I was a journalist material.

However, it was Physics that I eventually gravitated towards and did my Bachelor’s and Master’s in. After that, I joined Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore under a prominent astrophysicist because astrophysics was my first love. Unfortunately, unable to cope with some of the challenges while working under a prominent scientist, six months later, I took a break from research and started working with a friend as a content writer in his startup. A year or so later, my eventual PhD supervisor got in touch with me. I instantly loved his idea of using nanomaterials to make the world a cleaner and brighter place and ended up joining him at the Department of Atomic and Molecular Physics, Manipal University.

Despite my love for the work I did, there were other challenges. We had a petty head of the department who held a grudge against me for dating his graduate student. This came back to bite me in several ways, from him refusing to give me access to my own laboratory to curbing conference exposures. I think it was when I started publishing that he eventually shut the hell up!

There were other mishaps as well. One of the Master’s students I was training was working late at night one day and due to some miscalculations, blew up two furnaces and a good chunk of our laboratory. No one was hurt; but it did affect the quality of one of our papers!

On the day of my defense, I expected to feel and react the way I had seen countless others do, but I was weirdly calm. During the post defense party I received an email of acceptance for a postdoctoral position from South Africa. I went to my head and gave him the news, and while doing that, I received another offer from Ireland. Two offers in a span of minutes! I could literally see the blood draining from his face. He tried really hard to fake a smile for me.

Recently, I traveled back to Kolkata where I had done my Bachelor’s to talk to my old professors. One of them had refused to give me a letter of recommendation when I needed it, saying “SN Bose went on to become a scientist without ever doing a PhD!”. Who stops their own students from going ahead in life? When I saw him again, it all came back. I might have felt smug talking about my success but I think the power differential is stark and unfortunately it holds a lot of talented young students back. This attitude, wherever it exists, needs to change.”

Samvit Menon, PhD in Materials Sciences, Manipal University