You’re not bothering

Sending the same email twice changed my live forever

Yes, send that email again. Created with Adobe Express

I was about to finish my Master, and I knew I wanted to do a PhD.

I was back home, in Barcelona, and all my friends were planning on applying for the local grants and joining a department in one of the major universities in the area.

This was a great idea, after all, they also happened to be ranked the best two universities in the country.

I had an itch, a pebble in my shoe.

Was that semester I spent in Finland that planted the seed?

Hadn’t always dreamed of living overseas?

Was I done with my own country?

I sent my applications for the local scholarships and then started scrolling, out of curiosity. What was out there?

And I stumbled upon this ad.

A well-known American paleontologist living in Australia was looking for an international PhD student.

I didn’t hesitate and emailed him summarizing my interests and enquiring whether he’d be interested in advising me.

Radio silence…

At first, I took it as a No, and went on with my master’s thesis and scholarship proposals.

But then, I had a bad day. Why? I don’t remember, but anxiety is not uncommon in me in times of stress.

I do remember that I wasn’t happy about what my potential future in Barcelona looked like.

I knew that it was extremely likely to get the scholarship (in fact I later learned I would have gotten it), but I didn’t want that.

I wanted to be out and away, I wanted to travel the world.

I was agitated. So I started scrolling the internet again. And the same ad popped up in my search. With one difference… the email listed was different.

I convinced myself that that was it, he never replied because he was now using another email. He didn’t ignore me (spoiler, he kinda did).

So I re-sent the email to this new address.

15 minutes went by, and I hear my inbox’s bell…

It was him. Apologizing for not replying to my previous email and asking me to send him a two-page PhD research proposal within a week.

Long story short, he loved my proposal, we submitted it for a scholarship that I won, and within three months I was moving out of Barcelona for good.

I spent four years in Australia, graduated with my PhD, and then moved to the US to take a few postdoctoral positions before transitioning to the non-profit sector.

What I learned from this experience was to never be afraid to reach out to people.

Worst case scenario, they’ll ignore you. Best case scenario, you’ll get a step closer to your dreams…

Are there any particular seemingly small actions that you recognize as having significantly changed your life?