It is worth it.
“Hi, my name is Soundarya, but I go by Sunny.”
I have said this statement thousands of times every time I meet someone new, when a teacher is taking attendance on the first day of school, and now as I am writing this Medium piece. I have written it under my full name on exams, worksheets, and homework since the third grade and by now at the age of twenty-two, I have heard it all:
“Wow that is so much easier!”
“I like Sunny a lot better!”
“Why is your name so hard to pronounce?”
“Soun — wait what?”
“Never mind, I like Sunny better.”
In elementary school, I would cry to my parents, asking them why my name can’t be easy to pronounce like the other Indian girls at school. Of course, all I got in return was the speech about how I should be proud of my culture, that people will not always understand how to pronounce it, and the uniqueness of its Sanskrit meaning. I continued on with my life, with resentment boiling on a low flame, as I heard shorter and easier Indian names, while I was stuck repeating my tagline, “Hi, I’m Soundarya, but I go by Sunny.”
When I came to UMD, a campus as big as a town, I often found myself blending in with the other students. I was determined to stand out somehow by involving myself on campus, so I joined the First-Year Innovation and Research Experience program. With this organization, I had the opportunity to perform research in two different research streams, and on two different model organisms, giving me helpful insight into the field of research. My family has been incredibly supportive of my intentions to pursue research, something I have never taken for granted. Being an only child, I grew up thinking independently and relying on my own capabilities to navigate the strangeness of my surroundings, a skill that will prove to be useful during stressful times in my career. I am also the only female grandchild in my entire family, and being surrounded by male engineers and computer science professionals makes me the only one to pursue the biological sciences as a major. I felt I embodied the true spirit of a Terp, as the University of Maryland encourages students to be fearless which I interpret as being confident enough in your own abilities that all the other opinions of you simply fade away.
But research is hard. I have had more failures than successes during my undergraduate research experience and sometimes the complexity of the field gets so overwhelming where you are left feeling resentment and doubt. You start questioning, “Is this even worth it?” It is and it always will be. When experiments work, the results are almost always stunning and when they do not, then you can fix your protocol, adjust your measurements, or maybe even start again from complete scratch. During my time in FIRE, my mentors have taught me to always see the positive sides of my failures, and to always appreciate science for what it is: beautifully flawed and complex. I joined Scientific Terrapin as the Life Sciences Editor because I wanted to meet others who appreciate the innovative quality of research, or those still working through the challenges to get there. SciTerp is run for the students and by the students, so that anyone interested in research in any field on campus is encouraged to publish the fruits of their hard work. We want our students’ voices to be heard in the form of exciting findings to a wide variety of research topics that they have chosen to pursue. We are excited for SciTerp’s potential towards this goal.
By the way, I do not think I mentioned the actual Sanskrit meaning of my name, which translates to “beautiful.” Now, when I introduce myself as Sunny, it does not sting as it used to. I know deep down I was named Soundarya to stand out, and those who choose to admire the complexity of the name too will learn how to pronounce it. I realized being able to see the beauty in having a rare Sanskrit name that I previously resented is a lot like learning to see the beauty in the complex field that research is.
