A New Beginning (Again)
We all love saying "success comes through failure." It's practically a motivational poster at this point. But scroll through LinkedIn, and you'd think everyone's life is just one smooth upward trajectory—achievement after achievement, no stumbles, no restarts. So let me share what mine actually looks like.... 2015. I finished my Master's at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM). Both my supervisor and the external examiner wanted to take me on for a PhD. It felt like everything was lining up perfectly. But I came home instead. To be with my family. That mattered more. 2018. I tried again. Enrolled in a PhD program at RUET, thinking I could balance it with my job. I really believed I could make it work. Life had other plans. Job demands piled up. Family responsibilities grew. The hours I needed simply didn't exist. Last year, after a lot of hard thinking, I made the call: I quit. Late 2025. An opportunity appeared out of nowhere. I had a conversation with a p...