I knew I wanted to do a PhD when I was undergoing my undergraduate studies in Biomedical Science. From then on, I knew I wanted to be a research scientist. In my field, you are limited for chances in high positions without a doctoral degree, so it seemed like a no brainer to me. After my undergraduate degree I went on to pursue a master's and, on completing that, I decided to get a few months of work experience, while applying for PhD programmes. I started applying in 2017 and, by the time I had received offers, I had applied to almost 50 different projects over the course of three years. Now, I am a first- year Medical Science PhD student at a prestigious university, and the whole experience feels surreal.

There were many times I told myself that I was not going to continue applying and times when the thought of completing another application form would fill me with dread. Repeated rejections were a huge damper on my work and motivation to even pursue a PhD. I had convinced myself that I was not smart enough to be offered a PhD, which, of course, was not true. Some of the feedback I had received was that other candidates were stronger, or that I had a good knowledge of the project but my experience was lacking. Most times, I was told there were too many applicants to receive individual feedback. Even now that I have started, I am sometimes hit by a feeling of imposter syndrome when things do not work in my project or there are things I do not understand. The feeling of not being good enough to be in the programme still hits me.

During my many failed applications, I decided to continue gaining some work experience and train in my field of interest. Looking back, I am glad I had the chance to work and learn skills that have been extremely useful now that I am doing my PhD. One of the most important things I learned is that your journey is not going to be the same as everyone else’s, and it may not go the way you plan it either. In some cases, it may end up even better than you could imagine.