It was 29th December 2022, and I was at the conference attending a lecture on CNTs in Kanpur by Dr. Naseeb Qureshi; it was during that time I saw a lot of Poster and paper presentations and instantly regretted not taking part in those presentations due to lack of awareness, I had already worked on a full paper on different composites like Carbon Nanotubes, Graphene, Natural Fibres and many more I can use to improve the ballistic applications. I was a bit upset, and while going back to the hostel, I was scrolling through LinkedIn (which I usually do every day for a while to see the updates about engineering and the world around me for new opportunities and learning very inspiring experiences of many people there). I saw a paper presentation going to happen in JNU around two weeks from that day. I called my Mentor, who has helped me from the start when it comes to Research, and I will be forever grateful for it and asked him if I present my paper in this presentation. He asked me to write a similar paper, not precisely of ballistic applications but a literature review on Boron nitride Nanotubes and their composites. I was so motivated that I started working on the paper that day. I love researching and especially the literature part of it. Within the first five days, I read around 100 research and review papers on this topic, and within ten days, the whole paper was ready, and I couldn’t be prouder of how I worked on this literature, having sleepless nights and working on it. (I had already worked around eight months before on similar composites, these ten days were about clubbing all the Research together). It was my first oral presentation, and I needed to make a presentation with a lot of mock presentations to get the confidence rolling.
After everything was completed, the day came, it was 12th January, and I prepared very well for this day; from CHEMCON to here, I only dreamed of having to present my paper on a stage. I presented the paper and answered the questions calmly. I was glad to have this experience, and seeing a lot of people presenting their papers as well and having to build a network with them was a very significant push in my career. Sadly, l also learned that literature reviews had less value than a research paper, but sadly, due to the high costs of Boron nitride nanotubes, I couldn’t conduct lab research on them. I was still glad to have my time on the stage where I could talk about my review. Being my first presentation, I am ready to research more and work towards exploring various composites and try to impact the world and go closer to my goal.
I want to thank everyone who has supported me in this journey as this has been a very hard-working and emotional journey for me, starting the first time I started my research work in February 2022. I plan to continue forward with the same passion and dedication I have for my field.