Passion: The one quality that sticks us with consistency and hard work which leads towards achieving the milestone, because when hard work and commitment all become one, we can reach at that level where passion lives, then nothing is impossible.

Well, following my passion I travelled from my Home town Pakistan to Zhoushan (China) which introduced me with an incredible phase of life.

First of all, I am truly grateful to Government of China for this privilege of joining the prestigious Zhejiang University.

For PhD, Marine Pharmacology was my first preference and I completed it with distinction, throughout my journey of PhD where I faced some difficult times, at the same time winning the Best International Student Award 2019 is the unforgettable moment of my life.

My University experience thus far have been amazing in fact I have learned many new things in short span of time. A positive attitude is one of the significant factor for a student to be successful in his/her study career. To succeed in career, we need to take control of our life and we need to establish schedules to manage our time. Sometimes I faced challenges in dealing with different experiments in lab. Tried to covenant with them positively and learn from these mistakes. For me, each mistake that we make boosts us to execute better next time. Trials and troubles give us the opportunity to progress. It would be imprudent to look for problems but if we come across difficult situations we should look at this as an opportunity to overcome difficulties.

In my research, I mainly focused to isolate marine-derived microorganisms that produced secondary metabolites with antimicrobial or anticancer activity. By using numerous advanced techniques, a number of compounds including different novel compounds were isolated. This research also provides scientific evidence of further investigation of some bioactive compounds. Moreover, various research papers are published in the supervision of Prof. Dr. Zhizhen Zhang.

In this regard, I highly acknowledge my Professor Dr. Zhizhen Zhang for his continuous support, patience and guidance. In fact, I could not have imagined having a better advisor and mentor for my Ph.D. Under his guidance, I successfully overcame many difficulties and learnt a lot. He has taught me another aspect of life, that “goodness can never be defied, and good human beings can never be denied”. For all these, I sincerely thank him and will be truly indebted to him throughout my life.

I was Mom-to-Be when I appeared in PhD and at this stage working in a microbiological laboratory was quite challenging because chemical exposure can trigger gestational queasiness and at the same time I want to encourage those who are working there, that Marine Sciences Labs of Zhejiang University provides appropriate protective measures to work in Lab and any student can be work effortlessly.

In addition, I came back to my Hometown after few months and blessed with a son and when my little one turned two months I had to resume the studies, Mostly students come for education after leaving their siblings and parents or maybe spouses but I resumed my studies after birth of my son and that was the hardest time when I came back to China without my baby, as my family lives in Pakistan and for me, raising a new born couldn’t be possible during my studies. Living far from my baby, was the throbbing thing that drives me 24 hours a day to work more passionately. My husband my in-laws all family and my parents who supported me in every walk of life, without them, it was not possible to work outside the Pakistan as my baby lived with my parents.

Learning is a significant factor which we can get from these kinds of opportunities whether it's education research business etc. We should learn from the time from people from environment even we can learn from a tree. Yes we can learn from a tree. How??

Let's see, A tree has to go through with different phases, sometimes it's heavy raining, sometimes it's snow falling, sometimes sun shows full warmth and heat but tree doesn't leave it's place, it absorbs all the seasons with it. In life we are going to go through tough times but we need to stay strong like this tree.

Lastly, I have to say one thing to my dear fellows that if we want to achieve success in life, we have to pay the price in advance.