This was something truly experienced by Dr. Shweta during her PhD life.
It was long back in 1998 just before I joined my PhD in IT-BHU (now IIT-BHU).
My parents were staying in Varanasi. For a long time (my B.Tech 4 years), I was studying away from home. I was tired of it. I was searching for some oppertunity, so that I could stay in Varanasi with my parents. During that period I met Prof. B.R. Vishvakarma, IT-BHU, regarding a project idea discussion. He wanted me to pursue research on the idea and suggested me to appear for the research entrance test conducted by IT-BHU. That was the time when PhD straight away after B.tech (Direct PhD) was rare. People used to go for their master degree after their bachelor degree. IT-BHU was enrolling direct PhD candidates through this research entrance test. I appeared the test and successfully cleared the same. Now this was how I managed to stay back with my parents in Varanasi
It was Jan 1999, I joined PhD under Prof. B.R. Vishvakarma on the topic "Frequency Agile Microstrip Antenna". I completed my course work. I was enjoying my research work. Work pressure started increasing gradually. Life was slowly moving towards " home to Lab and Lab to home", but I still was enjoying my work. Goal was very clear and defined in front of me; to contribute honestly to my research work. I was lucky enough to get the guidance of Prof. Vishvakarma. He is a person of knowledge who was always there to support his students. We were 4 to 5 students working under him and work was going smooth with lot of research discussions within the group. We had 2 computers in our research lab and everyone was waiting for his/her turn to complete the jobs
Time flew away and my research work found its pace. I completed my theoretical analysis, landed up with some results. Then the experiments started. I needed to find out the results from the experiments and then to compare those values with the previously found analysis results. IT-BHU had antenna fabrication facility but no proper testing facility was available. So we used to visit SAC (Space Applications Centre, an ISRO centre) for the testing purpose. Finally I achieved some results from the experiments.
Now the time has come to show my work to the world (a part of PhD process which every researcher do); . This process finally brings up a stand for you which declares the quality of your research work. So, for each researcher this publication phase has great importance. I had written a paper based on the analysis and the results. Me and one of my friends who was also pursuing her Ph.D did similar kind of analysis on two different devices under the supervision of our guide. We sent the papers to a reputed national journal. After 2 months when we got the report, her paper was accepted and mine was rejected. I was shattered and was unable to find a reason for that. It was the most painful moment during my PhD period. I broke down and felt myself lost.
That was the time when my guide stood beside me. He motivated me and asked me to resend the paper to a reputed International journal from a very reputed publication. I sent the paper with no hope at all. After 2-3 months we got the report and my paper was selected for publication with lots of praise from the reviewers. At that moment there was no boundary of my happiness. That day I realized, every failure opens up the path for a great success. This incident left me with a great lesson of life, TO BE OPTIMISTIC DURING THE TIME OF PAIN, as God always has some plans for everyone.
Experience Shared By : Dr. Shweta Srivastava (PhD IIT-BHU)
Associate Professor, Jaypee Institute of Information Technology, NOIDA
Past: Associate Professor, Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra
Experience Story Edited By : Sidhartha Sankar Rout, Editor Ignite Engineers
