Mummy, Look! The milk is tearing apart!

It was a Sunday and late in the morning. Rini, a little girl of love her Sunday mornings, because a) on Sunday mornings she can get up late, b) after getting up she can take out her heap of storybooks and magazines, she can look at them one by one, read some of them or solve some puzzles given in them while lying on her belly on the small carpet laid in their living room. Her mummy and daddy also feel very happy on Sunday morning, no office, no school, no shopping and no hurry. They read the newspaper, Sunday editions or magazines, drink tea and eat breakfast, chat and laugh.

Along with this, Sunday morning brings another attraction for Rini. On Sundays, Rini and her parents   cook together after having a late. Rini does not remember from when, but it has almost become a ritual now, that the Sunday afternoon meals are cooked by all of them together. Rini finds it very exciting as she can see many magic happening while they cook, her mummy calls it ‘food science’. She eagerly waits for this fun time for the whole week.

While trying to do science

Recently while staying at home and contemplating of my journey in science, the inspirations and the challenges, I wrote a piece about it. An upcoming, contemporary web portal for modern women called womensweb showcased the article.

Check it here;

For love of science: My story

Also while writing my story I stumbled upon several others who are working in science and what they are thinking. Academia is a field for individualistic approach. The roles are mostly for one person, supervisor, PhD student. Collective approach for thinking and problem solving is rare. From PhD students to post docs to academic faculties to technical staff, all try to face and solve their problems all alone.

Work-Life balance: Is there any?

Recently I was bit surprised to read a wall post on my FB from my cousin saying about not to mix professional and personal life. I was surprised as he is a first year college student, living with his very caring parents and so, he does not have any idea of professional and personal commitments as in real sense.

I immediately commented him that do you know that it is extremely difficult in todays world, he replied that this is his dream, though he does not know what the reality is and how his life will be. 

'Work-life balance' a very complicated and layered term I feel. It has different meaning for every person. It entirely depends on the kind of work he/she is involved in and the availability of social help for him or her. Today for some or I must say for most  of us it is fine to intertwine both together and proceed towards a blurred life.

After having many years of hovering guilty clouds in my mind shouting at me that I am the worst mother of the world and very bad in balancing work with life, I must say that at last I have been able to overpower those negative feelings recently (well most of the time).  My 6 and half year old child who stays almost 9-10 hours every weekdays without me (in school, after-school club or in a friends house) often tells me that she thinks that her mum is very funny and fine. You believe it or not this gives a tremendous boost to me and melts down slowly all those years of guilt consciousness I had grown in my mind while she was a toddler. 

Today whenever I see any toddler's mother feeling guilty about leaving her child in a day care for long hours I say her something which no body ever told me in that stage and that is "Don't worry, your child will not remember these days and believe me as long as her day care is a happy, safe and healthy place to stay your child will grow fine." Catching childhood illnesses at a day care is a common thing for a toddler going to day care for a long time and this period is a very testing period for every working parent.  This is also the time when most of the working mothers step down or out of their work. 

Work is ever growing and some professions like academics, medicine, law needs many more hours than normal 8 allocated for work in our world. With more women trying to enter in these fields, balancing between two demanding jobs and 1 or 2 small kids becomes a challenge for young parents to tackle it all, round the clock. It becomes a necessity for at least one of the parent to slow down ( often mothers) to keep things going.

Work - life balance is a never ending juggle and needs constant care specially when kids are small, any of the family member get sick or before a big project. On several occasions one don't have any family help and cannot afford to hire extra hands. Often at these situations the level of patience decreases among couples resulting into disharmony between them. But understanding of each others work schedule and joint approach towards parenting often is the best way to overcome these jumbled up days.

Then comes another situation where when two parents are doing same or even different kind of jobs and it is very common that they don't find jobs in the same cities and one of them might need to commute either daily, weekly, quarterly or even yearly. Distant parents miss the milestones of growing child and the nearby parent keep getting more stressed. In these situations other members of the family specially grand parents can be a great help but it is not always possible for many, for examples for expats or when grand parents themselves are ill. Prioritizing work and domestic chores, reaching out for  help with other families and communities, increasing social interactions is extremely important to overcome the feeling of loneliness and overwhelming responsibilities. Trying every possible way to reduce the separation time between family members is worth trying although it can pinch ones pocket. And finally if possible it is always good to find a final solution to the distance.

All in all, an entirely equal world which has been a dream of many philosophers for years is not an easy state to achieve, with equal rights to education and having similar jobs for both men and women the balance which has been created from long time in history of raising a child, looking after the house by a woman and earning and bringing money home by a man has got all entangled now. It requires few more generations to create a new kind of balance between work and life.

Some more interesting links : Time to hire a housekeeper (Science Magazine) 

                                               Scientist dad step up (Science Magazine),

How to get a PhD position in Germany? A little more

In my last post on how to get a Phd position in Germany? I mentioned about the points which can be helpful for a M.Sc final year student who has already made up her/his mind to proceed towards a PhD and that too in a foreign country.

But if you are already absorbed in a research institute in India and have joined a PhD programme, and you are still looking for doing PhD or collaborative PhDs from other places like in Germany, then as one my friends suggested; you can always reach out and make contacts with invited European scientists in the international seminars or conferences hosted by your institute or in any other Indian institute where you can participate.

As I mentioned in last posts and also in an  another one that largest numbers of applications for PhD positions are submitted from India and China and a personal dialogue or discussion in an international seminar can always provide an extra edge to your application.

But of course, if this is not possible in your case, then you can directly apply for international Phd programmes like;

International Max-Planck Research Schools

India and Germany has very strong educational ties and exchange services like DAAD are there offering several PhD positions in various fields. 

It is also possible to do collaborative research through DAAD exchange service, but in that case it is essential that your PhD supervisor in India have interests in starting a collaboration or does have a running collaboration already with a German faculty.

DAAD exchange programme also offers fellowships for short visits to both Indian and German Masters students, in that case it is needed to find a host faculty in the subject you are interested to pursue a short project. This short programmes are very good exposure to for those who want to opt for a PhD in Germany. 

In the field of science Masters studies/projects can be done in English language in many institutes now in Germany but for humanities, law or management the medium of instruction can be both German and /or English.

How to get a PhD position in Germany?

How can you apply for phd in Germany? My sister has done MSc in Chemistry, She might be interested.

A FB scrap I got today.

A question I am often asked by my friends.

India being the country of a huge youth population and increasing attention on academics, has also become a country who is sending large number of students for higher studies specially, Masters, PhDs and Postdocs to the developed countries. Mainly to the english speaking ones. The  reason, English is also most widely taught foreign language in India. But their is a twist too, English speaking countries mainly USA, UK and Australia also boast for very high tuition fees and tough competitiveness for a particular positions from fellow Asians only. It is a long process to give all those expensive admission tests like GRE, then wait for getting a chance in an University and then again waiting for scholarships. Many times even after going through all these processes, a good PhD offer is not ensured.  A big length of precious time runs away in between. So what are the other alternatives if you want to pursue your further career in a foreign land?

Germany, Switzerland, Austria, France, Scandinavian countries, Belgium and Netherlands in the  European Union can alternatively cater you a competitive PhD position may be with little less fuss, and equal qualitative satisfaction. In addition you can get a chance to stay in a continent which is like a miniature of whole of India and is exceptionally rich in cultural heritage, history and scenic beauty. 

Here I will pen down some information on how to start a Phd in Germany. The links are mainly the ones which I found useful when I was deliberately searching a PhD position in Germany 10 years ago, when Germany was opening up its door to foreign students who could come to Germany to do PhD without any prior knowledge of German language, Phd written in English (provided that German is the official language of Germany) was also getting accepted officially to provide the degree.

Definitions of PhD position in Germany:

The PhD positions in Germany are called half positions and they are categorised under different names like BAT II/2, you can either get a salaried positions or a  PhD position providing you a scholarship. Salaried positions are mostly offered by universities where you might also need to work as a part-time  teaching assistant like demonstrator for practical courses for undergraduate and/or post graduate students. Scholarships are provided mainly by the research institutes like Max planck institute where you might not need to work as a teaching assistant. Both have advantages and disadvantages, in a salaried position, you need to give taxes and therefore you are entitled to many facilities provided by the state (Government), but on a monthly basis you might get less money in hand than when you are getting scholarship. On the other hand if you are getting a scholarship,  when something goes sour (any need to leave the position and find another one) then you don't get any support from Arbeitsamt (Job centre) and you are left with the challenges on your own.

Research Institutes:

Max Planck Society

It is the biggest chain of  autonomous research institutes in Germany for all kinds of sciences and some humanities and languages for both fundamental and application based studies.  It is highly competitive but very open in attitude.

Fraunhofer Research Society

Another research society which works mainly on application and industry based projects. It is also a competitive place with special emphasis on projects in collaboration with industries.

Some more:

Are you specific about your choices and know which exact field are you interested in?  Yes, it is absolutely normal that until finishing our M.Sc. many of us remain unsure about the specific field where we want to proceed, as until Masters, specially in India our education is mainly information/book based or exam based, but from PhD onwards required skills are searching for scientific problems (unanswered), solving them by planning experiments and doing them, once finding few answers you need to zap them into a paper/conference or two and then move forward finding new unanswered  problems? And if you have a clear idea about which specific field you want to dive into then there are also some institutes in Germany who work on specific topics and  they offer PhDs too. Like;

GSI (Society for research in heavy ions)

European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL)

Juelich Research Centre 

German Cancer Research Centre 

All these research institutes are very competitive, but often they do have large numbers of available PhD positions.

There are many other research institutes and of course starting from these once you can reach to those links can be very easily from  Google.

Universities:

Here is the link from wikipedia , giving a list of almost all the universities in Germany.

Universities in Germany try to maintain an uniform reputation and offer very good environment of research. Additionally if you wan to test your flair  for teaching, universities are the best places to do that, as you will get a chance to demonstrate to the undergraduate or postgraduate students. Universities also provides very colourful campus lives and a chance to enter  more into the German society. Also most of the German universities welcome foreign students and therefore you also get a chance to know people from several other countries.

Almost all the websites you will search you will see are written in both German and English languages but sometimes may be all information are not available in English language. So it is better to send e-mails directly to the people, under whom you will like to work.

Litmus Test:

After you sort out some the places or groups where you would like to join as a PhD student, here are few little litmus tests you can do before sending an e-mail, showing up your interest.
Check whether they have open positions available
Check the lists of publication and how many publications are there with the present members of the group
Check the lists of instruments available and the list of collaborations

Final call:

If you are satisfied after all these tests, then write a mail to the Director, Chair or Group leader, showing your interest for a particular position and a project. Reason properly why you are interested and how do you think you can be helpful for the project. Give a short account of related educational qualification and work experience you have in the cover letter and list them chronologically (starting from latest degree) in your Curriculum Vitae ( or Bio-Data as we call in India)

On getting first reply:


It normally takes few days to get a positive reply, negative replies are quicker. Don't get upset if you don't get a reply at all. Keep trying. After you get an affirmative reply showing interest of the employer, then it is time for you ask more relevant questions. Like;
Whether you need to give an interview?
Duration of the project,
Your role in the project,
Salary and accommodation,
Whether you need to take extra courses on your subject?
Whether you need international certification for your English proficiency (TOEFL)?

And soon you will see that, you are feeling comfortable enough to ask your own questions.

So thats how I searched my way to Germany for a PhD position, now if you are willing  to do the same this is a small guideline.
Happy hunting!

Biweekly work reports: Tracking your research

During my Phd, the mantra in our group was to do experiments, collect and analyse data, plot them, file them and discuss them only when they are interesting or unexpected.  A scientific story would eventually grow after many repetitive steps and would take a shape of a journal or conference paper. So it became my habit to keep doing experiments and wait till something exciting happens. Reporting each and every experiment was not needed. It is a rare opportunity to get so much independence during PhD. As most of the time, PhD is all about walking on a chalked out path.

After joining as a Post doctoral researcher in an another group I found here the trend is to jot down each and every days experiments, analysis, observations and create a report. What have you done in last two weeks and what you want to do in next two weeks should be mentioned in a nut shell. These reports are then discussed in details in a group meeting between all group members.

In the beginning it was very difficult and depressing for me as I was not accustomed to write about negative results or experiments that did not work. In a two week interval often this is only something that happens in a scientists work place! At some points I also felt this report writing as a waste of time when the data were still not final and further refinements were needed.

I was shy to write these in a report as for me writing meant lots of exciting data and a complete story. Thanks to my persistent boss and organised colleague who persuaded me to keep a log of whatever I am doing. Slowly but steadily it became a habit of mine to open report template in MS Word as soon as I start the computer.

Although, my shyness for showing only negative results is still there but I started writing down all the reasons behind them in the report. And often turned out that contrary to my belief that negative results where not because of my mistakes but because of some unavoidable circumstances (instrumental error etc). 

Handing out a written document also  requires proper presentation in the form of tables, structural schemes and graphs. The text should also be well explained, formatted and must have proper references. In a way after writing biweekly reports for 6-8 months I found that without knowing I have already prepared many structural schemes, figures and tables of the results which gives a quick review of all the work I was doing on the project. A list of references was slowly building up.

In contrast to the PhD tenure when I used to get overwhelmed before a poster or oral presentation, now the things are little less overwhelming as the results have been written and  plotted already.

Continuous writing method also helps to find the reason and explanation behind each data and helps to plan for the next. For proper formulation of scientific text in the report I also need to keep reading about things going on in the literature world.

As a whole after few months of biweekly report writing I find that this is a good way to keep a  track of the science in your lab and keep it moving too. 

Lilawati's Daughters- A Handful from many unknown but remarkable stories

While staying alone, postdocing in Chemistry, caring for a little girl and doing science often waves of negative feeling captures the mind.

A fear of unknown and unsure future, guilty of separating a growing child from her father and a frustration of not able to get the research that much done as it ought to be grasp some of the busy scheduled days of mine. It is a cycle and some times this cycle keep cultivating into my soul for many days.

Just like all the external ones I try to treat this internal challenge with same potion and that is " never give up". So in order to come back into functioning mode I take little time off and do something else, or try looking around, by reading good books or searching for some inspirational stories or personalities. Sometimes having a crafty afternoon with my daughter or lots of typical Indian cooking  also helps.  Thanks Google for making all these so easy now-a-days. While doing this I find many articles, books or websites which become strong anchors for me later.

Today I found a beautiful book called

 Lilawati's Daughter: The Women Scientists of India

A wonderful effort made by Indian academy of Science and its initiative for Indian women in science.

Lilawati was daughter of famous Indian mathematician  Bhaskaracharya (12th century) and she herself was also a famous mathematician. Although she was not married but in this book women scientists of India are called as her daughter for being her true legacy.

The book is a remarkable collection of biographical and autobiographical essays from several women scientists of India who have worked and are still working very hard in diverse fields of science and ultimately have created their own niche amidst of many limiting conditions. The articles about pioneering scientists fill our hearts with respect while the stories of todays's scientists gives us the inspiration and ensures us that we are not alone.

Amidst of things to do labyrinth

Working pattern has changed completely in our days, although we hear a lot about companies providing facilities to work from home and do flexi timings, but that actually means we need to work at night or in the weekends or even during annual leaves. Works are no longer done in paper by pen. They are done in computers by computers and we are there to analyse, criticise, regularise and control the works done by them. Their comes the problem. If we need to send a letter to somebody it takes five minutes, we get the reply with in next five minutes and then we need to do the next step the chain continues and a 9 to 5 job expands to 24 hours. This is affecting all the professions. I am in science and can easily feel the difference. Fifteen years ago when I started in this field I was expected to make graphs and the do the analytical calculations in a notebook. The data obtained from the instruments I used then were not so complex. They did not need further back up by theoretical simulations. The information obtained from those studies were also much more crude. But that was the level and everybody were following same way of working. PCs were there but we were still limited to work place. We did not started carrying our laptops with us and we did not have mobiles in our hands. Now every instrument is computerised and is able to deliver large number of data with no time. Data needs to be explained and analysed by us and it creates a pressure on us when the supply of data and their analysis are not done in same pace. The art of doing science has become very elaborate. Detailed structural analysis, functional information and reaction mechanism is required for a peer reviewed publication or grant approval. International collaborations, world class facilities and easy access to scientific information has also mobilised the scientific community as a whole. The gap between developed and developing countries in delivering good research is decreasing and that is also creating extra stress on individual level. Hundreds of students now a days migrate to different countries to pursue their Masters, Phd and Postdoctoral research and then they either stay in the host country or come back to their homeland for better perspective. In both cases they need to be very very competitive and are expected be able to live a highly stressed life. Work is becoming life and when we get little time out of work we try to fulfil all our incomplete wishes and thus get stressed again. This cycle many times creates immense dissatisfaction, chronic health problems and unhappiness. It is a high time that we learn to distinguish between positive and negative stress. Career is needed to be taken care of but there are many other things which are also needed to be cared for.

Sunetra Gupta

"Sunetra Gupta, an expert in theoretical epidemiology and a writer based at the University of Oxford, has been chosen for the Rosalind Franklin Award by the Royal Society in recognition of her work in the field of infectious diseases.

The Kolkata-born academic is one of the four Oxford academics recognised by the Royal Society in its 2009 Awards, Medals and Lectures."

This small news snippet in www.ndtv.com was enough to provoke me to google her name.

It was like finding a treasure to find a very well maintained website of Prof. Sunetra Gupta exhibiting multiple aspects of her personality of being a successful scientist, mathematician, writer and a mother of two too.
I constantly search for inspiration from other persistent professional women to learn from their lives and keep myself motivated in the 24/7 business of science. I am sure Dr. Sunetra Gupta's achievements will inspire many of us in our forward journy.