Reema Bhattacharya

Along the journey, there have been many women who have been instrumental to where I am today, especially around the time once I came here to the United States. Those women thought that I have the potential, and if they didn't help me or support me, I don't know if I would be here. There's one faculty at UB, she was not my professor or anything, but she was a faculty at my husband's department, who just quietly asked me to come and help out in her classroom, because I was just getting bored, and I didn't know anybody. That one thing led to the other, and helped me grow, really build my confidence for the first time, to be able to talk as a non-native speaker, to be able to participate in a classroom full of hundreds of students, and to talk to them, help them out, was my first taste of what it's like to work here. I would definitely attribute a lot of my success to those supporting women who I met when I first came to the States. And my husband, actually, as much as I hate to say this. There was a guy who asked me if I would cook for the PhD students, and I was excited, okay, they will pay me for cooking and stuff. My husband said, what do you mean to cook? It's okay, you can invite them whenever you want, and we can have Sunday lunches and stuff, but don't do it like that by cooking. You have so much potential, you know, go for GRE and try grad school. Why will you cook? I said, I don't want to study, I don't like studying. He goes, it's okay, you know, at least try. I said, I don't want to go back to engineering school. He's like, you don't have to study engineering school. There are other options. Check them out. See what you like. He did contribute a lot to my first job, to my first admission.

The best career advice I've received is to believe in yourself, and it doesn't matter what you are doing, as long as you are enjoying it. You need to be happy with what you have. Don't see others and think that the world is so much greener on the other side. It always looks greener on the other side, so if that's what you want, build it up. Think so you can get that career path for you. Nobody is going to bring it on a silver platter for you, so have the grit. I've seen many failures in life, and that's where I learned that one failure does not define you.

When you are young, you could not decide how or where you wanted to grow. Rather, it was more like, this is where my family is, these are the only options I have. It is not like I can do anything I want. When you're starting mid-family and career, you have a lot more constraints than what I can do today. When you have that, when you are at that stage in your career, how do you really define that? How do you still navigate those struggles of, am I a good mom? Am I a good wife? And then, also, I want to have a career. I come from a different background altogether. There were cultural beliefs and things that were getting more difficult to navigate at times. It builds frustration, it builds stress, not just for you, it's even for your family members also. You want to be available for every concert of your child. You want to take your child to every event that they have to go to. When you are at the peak of your career, in your 30s and your early 30s and stuff, you also have little babies that need a lot more attention than you really have the time to. Navigating that as a woman is the most challenging part, I feel. And having that support system is the key. Don't worry about the time. It does not matter. Some can get it at 35, if you get it at 45, it's not a big deal. Take your time, do at your pace, do what's best for you.

Family is most important to me. Commitment - doing what I have said I will do. I like to recognize people who do good work. Having financial security is important. And I value continuing to learn.