From Struggles to Science: A Journey Fueled by Willpower, Not Genius

Being a scientist, working on satellite data (from NOAA/NASA) at CUNY, is a long ways away from being born in a remote village in India to a family running a small tea shop, generating a daily income of less than $1. In order to attend school, from age 10, I had to travel to a nearby town by train and bus. I often didn’t have money for tickets and spent the trip trying to avoid being caught by the ticket checker. This daily journey started at 8 in the morning and ended at midnight.

During that time, I made friends with children and young people selling items at the train station, many of whom were involved with gangs. Many of those friends went to prison or got killed in gang fights before reaching adulthood. Here, I realized what survival meant.

During school, I was a fairly mediocre student. In 12th grade, I had extremely low grades (take a look at the transcript!), far below than basic eligibility requirements for any engineering college. Life stopped for a second.

At this point, I decided I needed to make a change, for my own sake and my family’s. I enrolled in a polytechnic/community college, earning good enough grades to attend a Govt Engineering College through hardship, followed by a GATE Scholarship, for a masters degree from VNIT and then eventually a doctoral degree from The City University of New York (CUNY).

Reflecting back now, I realized that I made it through this path because of willpower rather than any natural intelligence or spark I possessed. My story wasn’t one of a prodigy or someone born for greatness. I was not some undiscovered genius, equipped with enough raw talent to single-handedly pull myself out of my circumstances.

Being an average person with bad grades, I faced insecurity. There is no shame in that. I am grateful for the many mentors and academic institutions that took a chance on me, to the friends and family members who supported me, and to my past self who felt fear during the journey but continued forward anyway.

While teaching/mentoring/connecting with students from under-served communities through programs like NOAA CESSRST, and CREST HIRES at The City University of New York, and meeting students in India, I saw that there are so many students, who have the potential to be future scientists/engineers. You just need to tell them that they don’t need to have natural talent/money, just willpower.

My story is just one of thousands of average students/people who were able to make their lives better with support from others and the will to push forward.