The India for scientists and educators with a cause
All over the world, many fresh PhD graduates face an existential crisis, deeply despairing at their prospects. A post-doctoral fellowship can be a voluntary exercise in sapping one’s soul. We’re bursting with research ideas and energy with few outlets and sometimes nothing to show for them. Meltdowns are imminent and many have precipitated. I want to share my experiences here at home, in India, that have been personally and intellectually rewarding while shining a light on the contributions I can make. I garnered these experiences by stepping away from the bench occasionally to teach and train students around me. Finding out new things about the world we live in, makes me tick. Conveying knowledge by sparking curiosity and thought, carries me between these often infrequent and tiny but glorious flashes of discovery. As a post-doc in a research institute, one has to seek out opportunities to teach. In the past four years, I have taught students from small towns in India onlin...