I thought that attending a top-ranked university in the West, and especially the United States, would be a guaranteed ticket to success. I was also eager to help the world by studying the impact of pollution on the global environment. As a child growing up in a remote village in India, I had seen some of these effects myself, such as how indoor air pollution from cooking leads to health problems and how changing weather patterns affect farmers' crops. I hoped that the atmospheric science research I planned to pursue could help improve the lives of my family and friends back home and the many others in similar situations. So, when I arrived in the United States in 2007 to start my Ph.D., I was ready to put my head down and get to work.