When Work Meets Passion
ISHANI
Dear reader,
Today’s letter is going to be about the incident which helped me realise that learning about science and doing research was something I enjoyed and would see myself doing for a long time.
Having been an athlete all my life, sports nutrition would have been something I would have liked to pursue, but it wasn't offered as an M.sc. program when I was studying at the National Institution of Nutrition (NIN), so I had to be content with doing applied research nutrition in it instead.
On the last day of my Kedarkantha trek-a reward for getting admission in one of the 16 seats at NIN-our trek leader, Yash, made an offhand comment about the daily oxygen saturation and heart rate readings being sent to Bangalore for analysis, That around my curiosity enough to end my Christmas holiday a day earlier and meet my guide to present this as a potential idea for my research,
As things turned out, the trek organizers were kind enough to send me data for over 7000 trekkers, Seven thousand samples. Seven thousand in an area of research where the norm is 200-300! I was thrilled.
Throughout my dissertation work one month of data entry, the coding, the analysis- I was having a ball of a time. I am as sure now as I was then, that nobody has had as much fun as me during MSc dissertation. Work truly became fun.
"
When I was interpreting the results, for a few hours (until I showed it to my guide), I was the only person on the planet who knew that information!
That high of being the first to know something new was so thrilling that I did not get a single wink of sleep that night."
The next morning, I rushed to my co-guide with dark circles and all to share them.
The exhilaration kept me going through the subsequent sleepless weeks of the presentations, writing-up the dissertation, final exams, submitting my work to conferences, and presenting. Winning the 1st prize in oral communication and beating PhDscholars in my category at the Nutrition Society of India conference was enough to give me the confidence to present a poster at the International Society of Mountain Medicine in Nepal. Being the youngest to present at such a high-level conference is an experience I will never forget.
The subsequent writing up of the work and my current focus on getting it published is a feeling that never gets old.
"Never combine your hobby with your work" is a quote that's said often, but doing the polar opposite has been my motivation.
So here are my two cents on you choosing a career path or even a long-term project. Find something you will enjoy doing and learning about endlessly, because that will be the only thing that keeps you going when data entry inevitably gets exhausting, deadlines are looming and a million things/tasks demand your attention. As Mrs. Margaret said in school, “Do what you do, do well”.
Love,
Ishani
About Ishani
Ishani Ghotikar is an applied nutrition researcher. She loves to write and to climb mountains.
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