Change Is the Only Constant

I am standing at the brink of completing my PhD, and the thoughts are flowing with a diversity like never before. From nostalgia to fulfilment to excitement, and of course gratefulness. A full circle of emotions, all in full swing. Amongst those, though, one thought is the strongest: change is the only constant, and the next one is close and imminent. The first half of that line was also the caption of my Instagram post when I first arrived in the States, in the first week of my PhD in the fall of 2021. Let me take you through the journey of education I have had so far, and then you decide. Is close to 30 years of education worth it for the experience it provides?

My education began with my Junior and Senior Kindergarten years in Mulund. Purandare was the name of the school, since we were living with my grandparents back then. Life was good. I was used to winning almost every competition I took part in over there, be it sports, speech, or academics. Judging by that, you can probably also guess that the quality of the competition wasn't all that high. No offense to them, but it's impossible for a person like me to win that many prizes without that being true! Anyway, when I turned 5, we moved to Thane, the neighbouring city, where the next chapter of my education was waiting.

Saraswati Secondary School was the name of the school I attended from 1st to 10th standard. Trust me, it was a big step up. Even though it was a Marathi-medium school, where all subjects are taught in Marathi, it had high standards and a great crowd compared to the usual state of Marathi-medium schools. It took me time to digest that change; the first couple of years were just pure study-mode to regain my confidence. Fortunately, the art of socializing was built into my DNA, and I started gathering good friends. The divisions till 7th standard were based on birthdate, meaning people born in the first 3 months of the year went to division A, the next 3 to B, and so on. Being the “Boxing Day man” (with an ‘almost’ Santa clause in my book), born on the 26th of December, I of course landed in division D. Now here’s the twist: students who failed a year also got stacked into division D over time! So I wouldn’t exactly say the crowd got better as the divisions went up. I think it was around 4th standard that I started playing sports regularly, and that kept me sane enough to balance the academic pressure.

The next challenge, or change, came within that same school phase. It was in 8th standard, when suddenly Maths and Science switched to English. My school was technically Semi-English, and this was the “semi” part of it. This was a huge change. You might not realize it, but put yourself in the shoes of a 12-year-old boy. Everything you had learnt in one vocabulary, you now had to shift into another language while keeping the knowledge intact. It was crazy! That year was hard. Again, it was back to survival mode first, and by improving a little every day, we all passed the remaining three years comfortably. Based on the ranks we got after 10th, we were allotted to the next phase, Junior College, the 2-year education before Degree college.

The change during those 2 years wasn’t academically heavy. It was about my social being, my comfort zone. Most of the crowd around me in school, my best and worst friends alike, were all Marathi. Most of them were even from the same caste. School had also been really close to my house, just a 5-minute walk; I literally walked back home on my own when I was 6. But cut to 11th, and now Junior College was on the other side of the city, and the crowd was no longer all Marathi. This gave me my first glimpse of another culture. The crowd wasn’t necessarily the brightest; none of us had actually topped our respective schools! But it did give me some access to Hindi, and that opened many doors later. In fact, now when I write poetry, I write much better in Hindi than in Marathi or English.

After 12th, most of my close friends, who were in science, took engineering and went off to their respective colleges through competitive exams. I chose a slightly different route, basic science (BSc), thinking I would follow in my father’s footsteps and make him proud, while satisfying my own curiosity along the way. This brings us to the next change: Bachelor’s at Degree college, where now most of the crowd was non-Marathi. Plus there was a train journey now, 45 minutes one way in the hectic Mumbai-local crowd. These years changed my life; they helped me evolve so much culturally that I could never go back. The train journeys made me tougher than I had ever been, able to tolerate almost anything. But it was challenging, so again the first step was survival mode, and once we gained confidence and got a flavor of research there, it became a smooth ride. The kind of personality I have now was heavily seeded in those 3 years.

Next, a related chapter, came my Master’s at Mumbai University. This was now a 1-hour journey to reach the university, and even less clarity about the future! A Master’s in Physics doesn’t land you a job, nor does Mumbai University put a big name on your CV to survive in the open world. The main challenge during these years was figuring out what to do next. Fortunately, I got opportunities in that phase to reach out to and connect with people who helped me get projects at TIFR. That institute was my first real association with a highly reputed, genuinely recognized Indian institution. The level of education and expertise at MU wasn’t top-notch either, but the dedication of a couple of professors there motivated me, so much so that I came back to MU to deliver a lecture series myself a few years later!

After completing my Master’s, I joined TIFR, one of the premier institutes, to do research in accelerator physics. I didn’t get a chance to attend any courses there, but I was a student in research. The first challenge here was the commute: 1.5 hours one way, train and bus combined, just to reach work. By the time you got there you were already half-exhausted, and a full work day ran from 7:30 am to 10 pm. Another challenge in that phase was coping with the brilliance around me and carrying the responsibility and expectations of a researcher in that lab. That crowd was easily the best minds in physics I had ever encountered till then, and it baffled me. They knew so much and also had the ability and the will to do much more. Back to survival mode, I tried to cope there for a year or two. I never really settled, though, since there were other issues with the lab I joined, but I won’t gossip about that here. Thankfully for me, if not for most of the world, covid happened, and it became the turning point of my education. That’s when I got the admission letter from Purdue. Imagine still turning your life around in education at the age of 24 already, haha!

Now I was at Purdue, the last chapter of the education journey. I came, and I saw that over here there wasn’t just the “cream of India” to compete with, but also the “international cream,” haha. Man, that was a scary realization in my first semester, fall of 2021. Sometimes I still play it back in my head like a horror film. First time away from home. First time setting foot outside India. In India I had never even stayed in a hostel, imagine, for 24 years! Back to survival mode. Back to grinding it out until it felt remotely comfortable. This again took a couple of years or more, with a few anxious moments and some panic attacks along the way! But the people around me helped me with everything. Of course, there were so many changes in this journey, starting with the fact that all my labmates were American. I was the first “international student” to join that lab. It’s a crazy ride, to say the least!

You’ll think this is the end, but there’s still one last thing. In my final year, I did an internship at QuEra. This showed me what the “world’s cream” of competition and talent really looks and feels like. The sheer expertise around me didn’t let me sleep well at night. Once again, survival mode had to kick in. I managed to contribute a bit there, and based on that and the research I did at Purdue, I now have the opportunity to join a quantum computing company as an employee!

As I look back on the journey, with major nostalgia, the one thing that has stayed constant is that survival mode in the initial phase of each change. It is the belief that even if you are merely surviving, holding your competitive spirit through the high tides and the tough stretches, you are still growing. And compounding all of that has to lead to success one day. Every phase of education has taught me the same lesson, just with different examples and different intensity! Of course, it can still very well be that I’ll have to change careers, or fail somewhere midway. But this, I feel, will not change. In the very year I turn 30, I can finally say, by the end of this coming week, that I am done with my education! It has been long, longer than anyone would recommend or aspire for. Still, I am sure of one thing that won’t stop: the learning. Fortunately or unfortunately, that’s the only Truth!