“Hope that my involvement in this project will help me with both professional achievements and personal happiness!” – Chet Raj Pathak

I finished my B.V.Sc. & A.H. degree in the summer of 2016. I remember that exciting moment, thinking about the new title in front of my name as Dr. But the excitement was no longer in front of uncertainties about my future career. I joined a pet hospital a few months after obtaining my bachelor’s degree as a veterinary doctor on the night shift. During the morning and day, I was involved in studying for my master’s degree at the post-graduate campus of TU, IAAS at Kirtipur, in the department of veterinary microbiology and parasitology. During the second year of my MSc, I was recruited as a technical officer by the government of Nepal in NARC and completed my research work as well, where I spent more than three years.

Life has an amusing way of taking some unexpected turns. With the completion of my Master degree in veterinary parasitology, different doors for opportunities opened for me, and I got appointed as an assistant professor at Tribhuvan University, where I spent one year. Currently, I’m working as an assistant professor at Agriculture and Forestry University.

At 26, I was working for 9 months in a pet hospital at night and studying during the day; I was tired and unimpressed with my career. Never would I have imagined that 4 years later, I’d be an assistant professor at a prestigious university in Nepal, and I’d be a doctoral student at Nord University in collaboration with my own university, AFU.

For many people like me, it requires higher degrees for promotion or advancement opportunities. A truthful conversation about advancement with my respected mentors gently pushed me towards considering a doctorate in something new that I had not experienced during my studies. After which, I began to think about the option; I found myself so lucky that I was selected as a PhD candidate for the CEER project. On one hand, it is a very exciting period to learn new skills and experiences, and on the other hand, it’s a very challenging task to come up with novel key findings during the research. I believe in hard work and dedication to work, and hope that my involvement in this project will help me with both professional achievements and personal happiness!