Losing My Dream College, Finding My Path: A Cosmologist's Recovery Story | My Dear Dairy Ep:4

I Didn't Get the University I Wanted. I Found the Life I Needed.

The journey toward cosmology begins with ordinary days of studying, questioning, and learning.

How academic setbacks, mental-health recovery, and a changed definition of success reshaped my journey toward physics and cosmology.

This is the final chapter of my origin-story series. If you're discovering this story for the first time, I recommend starting with Blog 1, Blog 2, and Blog 3 before reading this chapter. The journey will make more sense in that order.

Personal experience disclaimer: This article describes my own experience of mental health, treatment, recovery, and academic setbacks. It is not medical advice, and my experience should not be treated as evidence that a particular treatment or practice will work for someone else. Everyone's experience is different.

When Blog 3 ended, I had been diagnosed and was beginning to recover.

I want to pick up exactly where that story left off, because recovery, for me, wasn't a straight line. It was two steps forward, a fall, and then learning to stand up slightly differently each time.

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Boards, With Almost No Preparation

While preparing for JEE, I experienced a manic episode, and for nearly four months, I didn't open a single book.

My board exams arrived right in the middle of that period.

I remember the stress before results day with painful clarity. At the time, I believed I needed at least 60% to meet the eligibility requirement for the IISc route I was pursuing, alongside a qualifying competitive-exam score.

When the results came out, I couldn't even find my admit card. I searched for almost three hours and never located it.

My heart was racing. I was certain I'd failed chemistry because I hadn't written the organic chemistry section at all, which was worth around 35 out of 70 marks.

My father asked my teachers directly what my result was.

They told him: 69.9%.

Almost 70%.

I was stunned.

I'd scored around 34 marks in chemistry alone. Considering how little preparation I had been able to do during that period, the result felt almost impossible to believe.

And through all of it, my mother sat outside my examination hall for three hours because she didn't want me to be alone with that fear.

That period taught me something I didn't understand at the time: sometimes surviving an academic year is an achievement in itself.

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Losing JEE, and Choosing to Drop

I filled out the JEE form, but my condition was too unstable for me to sit the examination.

So I skipped it.

Then I made another difficult decision: I would take a drop year and try again properly.

A month later, I had recovered significantly, at least outwardly. My parents arranged online coaching through Physics Wallah (PW), and for three months I put almost everything I had into preparation.

This time, I felt genuinely confident. Then I visited my Nani's house.

My routine changed completely. There were late nights with cousins, broken sleep, irregular meals, and a very different daily environment.

I didn't understand the significance of that disruption at the time.

About ten days after returning home, my mental health deteriorated again. I experienced a deep depressive episode followed by another manic episode.

Large parts of those months are still blank in my memory.

I mainly remember being hospitalized again, with the JEE examination approaching rapidly.

Eventually, I made the decision to skip JEE and try CUET UG instead, hoping to enter a central university.

I put my heart into that attempt too.

But the pressure of believing it was my last realistic opportunity became overwhelming, and I wasn't able to perform the way I had hoped.

Another plan had fallen apart.

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When Every Backup Plan Also Falls Apart

I still had a backup option: Chandigarh University.

But while I was in an unstable state of mind, I took advice from a relative living in Chandigarh who told me it wasn't the right option and suggested that I look elsewhere.

I was confused and hesitant.

Then my CUET result came later than expected, and by the time I had clarity about my options, Delhi University's admission timeline had moved forward.

I started searching almost desperately for somewhere I could still study Physics Honours.

Eventually, I found a college in Rohtak — the same city where my ongoing treatment was based.

My parents didn't want me moving to a large city or somewhere far away while I was still recovering. My doctors also agreed that staying close to family and continued care was the better option for me.

So after an entire year of preparation, sacrifice, and setbacks, I ended up at a college I had privately thought of as merely "decent."

It wasn't the prestigious university I had spent years imagining.

And that gap between what I had worked toward and what I actually got was painful.

For a while, I saw the college I entered as evidence that I had failed.

I didn't yet understand that the meaning of that decision would change.

When the university plan fell apart, I had to rethink what success meant to me.

 

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The Reframe: Mastery Instead of Prestige

I won't pretend I've completely stopped feeling disappointed about the university I didn't get.

That disappointment still visits sometimes.

But over time, I started asking a different question.

Instead of:

"What university did I get?"

I started asking:

"What can I become from here?"

There is a phrase I hold onto in Hindi:

"Jo hota hai, wo acche ke liye hota hai."

I don't interpret it to mean that painful experiences are good in themselves.

I interpret it differently: painful experiences can eventually become meaningful in ways we couldn't see when we were living through them.

I have faith in something larger than my own plans — call it God, the universe, or whatever fits your worldview.

I've learned to surrender the parts of this journey that were never completely in my hands while taking complete responsibility for the parts that are.

Getting into a great university wasn't something I could fully control.

But becoming better at physics is mine.

Building skills is mine.

Learning mathematics is mine.

Writing code is mine.

Working on projects is mine.

Documenting what I learn is mine.

Showing up consistently, even when resources don't come easily, is mine.

That is where my focus lives now.

Not on the name printed on my degree, but on what I actually build with the years I have.

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What Mastery Means to Me Now

My definition of mastery has become much less glamorous.

Most of my days aren't filled with dramatic breakthroughs.

They look more like solving mechanics problems, rebuilding mathematical foundations, learning Python, writing code that doesn't work the first time, making mistakes, reading something I don't understand, and returning to it again.

Sometimes progress is simply understanding one concept that confused me yesterday.

Sometimes it is solving one problem without looking at the solution.

Sometimes it is opening the textbook when I don't particularly feel like studying.

I've realized that mastery is rarely one extraordinary achievement.

It is the accumulation of thousands of ordinary days spent becoming slightly better.

That realization changed the way I look at my degree too.

Maybe the university is part of the environment.

But it doesn't have to determine the ceiling of what I can learn.

For me, mastery now means solving problems, rebuilding foundations, learning to code, and returning to difficult ideas.

 

What Recovery Actually Looked Like

My doctors helped me learn, piece by piece, how to handle whatever life brings.

Recovery didn't mean that everything suddenly became perfect.

There were still difficult periods.

But somewhere between crisis and recovery, I discovered something unexpected:

creativity.

I taught myself video editing, vlogging, and graphic design.

I built my Blogger website from scratch.

I took on a graphic-design role at an NGO called Lead4Earth.

I began documenting my work online.

And gradually, I started building a life that wasn't defined entirely by examinations and admission results.

I also experienced IBS symptoms during periods of intense stress. For the past four months, I haven't experienced those symptoms.

I can't attribute that change to one particular factor.

Alongside my medical treatment, practices such as meditation, yoga, gratitude, and affirmations became useful parts of how I managed everyday stress.

I can't say exactly which factor made the biggest difference.

But together, these experiences helped me discover something I had been missing for years:

peace.

Learning how to live peacefully, rather than simply surviving one crisis after another, changed my life more than any exam result or admission letter ever could.

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From the University I Wanted to the Scientist I Want to Become

The biggest change wasn't that my circumstances suddenly became perfect.

It was that I stopped treating my circumstances as a complete definition of my future.

Three years ago, I believed success meant getting into a famous university.

Today, I think about success differently.

Success means becoming the kind of scientist who would have continued learning even if the original plan had failed.

Someone who can sit with a difficult problem.

Someone willing to rebuild weak foundations.

Someone who can learn mathematics instead of avoiding it.

Someone who can code, make mistakes, debug, and try again.

Someone who can read research papers without expecting to understand everything immediately.

Someone who can eventually contribute something of their own.

That is the person I am trying to become.

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Where This Leaves Me

My journey toward becoming a cosmologist has only just begun.

But this time, it isn't built entirely on expectations.

It is built on mastery.

Showing up for physics.

Strengthening mathematics.

Learning computational tools.

Working on projects.

Reading.

Writing.

Making mistakes.

Documenting the process.

Staying curious.

And trusting that research opportunities, a strong MSc programme, and everything beyond will emerge from consistent work rather than a perfectly executed plan.

That is also why Cosmology Mentor exists.

I don't want it to be a polished record of someone who already has everything figured out.

I want it to document the process of becoming a physicist — the mathematics I struggle with, the computational projects I build, the concepts I misunderstand, the research skills I develop, the mistakes I make, and eventually the work I do in cosmology.

Maybe someone else studying physics will find these notes one day and realize that they don't need a perfect beginning either.

They just need to keep building.

The destination changed.

The mission never did.

 

The destination changed. The mission never did.

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To Anyone Whose Plan Fell Apart

If you've ever had every backup plan fall through at once, I know how frightening that can feel.

I don't have a universal lesson for what you should do next.

I only know what happened in my own case.

The university I wanted didn't happen.

The career timeline I imagined didn't happen.

The first plan didn't work.

The backup plan didn't work.

And yet, the larger goal — becoming a physicist and eventually working toward cosmology — is still alive.

Sometimes rebuilding doesn't mean returning to the original plan.

Sometimes it means deciding which part of the original dream was actually yours.

For me, it was never really the university name.

It was physics.

It was curiosity.

It was the desire to understand how the universe works.

And that mission is still here.

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The End of One Story, the Beginning of Another

This closes my "My Dear Diary" origin-story series.

But it isn't the end of my story.

From here, Cosmology Mentor becomes less about where I came from and more about where I'm going — learning physics, building computational skills, preparing for research, exploring cosmology, and documenting the process honestly.

If you want to follow that journey, you're welcome to stay.

The destination changed.

The mission never did.

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Continue the Origin Story

Start from the beginning:

Blog 1: My dear diary ep:1
Blog 2: MY dear diary ep:2
Blog 3: MY dear diary ep:3

Continue with: how to set-up python research in Ubuntu ?

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About the Author

Muskan Jain is a B.Sc. Physics student documenting her journey toward research in cosmology. Through Cosmology Mentor, she shares her physics learning process, mathematical development, computational projects, research preparation, and lessons from the path toward becoming a physicist.

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Personal experience disclaimer: This article describes my own experience of mental health, treatment, recovery, and academic setbacks. It is not medical advice. If you are experiencing a mental-health crisis or are concerned about your own health, consider seeking support from a qualified healthcare professional or an appropriate crisis service in your country.