Time flies

“I was luckily saved from the coronavirus! During a conference, an Italian professor had shown interest in hiring me as a postdoctoral fellow in his laboratory which he was setting up in China.

I had to hurriedly leave the campus after my defense in a week because I had to arrange my documents and prepare for travelling to China. My potential supervisor, however, didn’t know that China doesn’t accept provisional degrees! My convocation wasn’t going to happen anytime soon. So I had to be rejected in October 2019. It was deeply upsetting until the first case of coronavirus was reported in Wuhan in November. The laboratory I was rejected from was situated very close to Hubei province. I realized I had dodged a bullet!

The saddest part was leaving the campus in haste. In all these years, it had become my second home. I was a part of the first batch of Integrated MSc-PhD program at IISER. We had common classes with Bachelor’s, Master’s and PhD students. I saw many people come and graduate and my friends’ circle kept changing with time. When I first joined the institute, it was an academic shock for me. University life was way different. I hadn’t developed any idea how to read scientific papers in university. I would get lost in a paper trying to go back to references and reading each and every line. I took my fair share of time understanding that this wasn’t the right way; that sometimes, all you need…