Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained

When Professor Hinode's email arrived in Dr. Long's inbox, it was just another message among many. For me, it became a doorway.

As a plain undergraduate Chemical Engineering student at HCMUT, I had no particular reason to believe I would end up in Japan. But when the opportunity came — a JST-funded exchange program at Tokyo Institute of Technology — something pushed me to say yes. That small act of saying yes, it turns out, was the most important decision of my early career.

I arrived at Tokyo Tech carrying nanocellulose samples from Vietnam, not entirely sure what I would find. What I found was focus. Late nights in the lab — past 9 pm, regularly — analyzing samples on instruments I had never touched before. Professor Hinode's support made it possible for me to work with the SEM, to see my own materials at a scale I had only read about in textbooks. I loved every minute of it.

Near the end of the trip, I visited the Tokyo Tech museum and stood in front of an exhibit on conductive polymers — the science behind a Nobel Prize. What a discovery, I admired. Then three weeks ended. A farewell party. Big smiles. Satisfied faces. Mine included.

But it wasn’t enough (haha). I came back to Vietnam with a quiet determination: I would return to Tokyo Tech. This time, for a PhD.

The twist I never saw coming was composting. Not nanocellulose. Not materials science. Organic waste and the microorganisms that break it down — a world of actinomycetes, aeration, germination indices, and DNA bands glowing under UV light. I ventured into it. Nakasaki Lab became my home for years. Christmas Eve DNA extractions. Multicultural labmates from Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia. Snow covering my bicycle like a sculpture I didn't ask for but appreciated anyway. Neighbour's cats during COVID lockdowns. An axolotl at the aquarium that I recognized immediately as Wooper from Pokémon.

A PhD is not just a degree. It is a sustained act of courage — the willingness to sit with uncertainty, to ask questions that may not have answers, to rebuild your thinking from the ground up when the data disagrees with your expectations. Japan taught me that. Not just in the lab, but in the discipline of daily life there. The quiet commitment. The respect for the process.

When I finally received my PhD, I thought about that email. The one Dr. Long forwarded.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained is easy to say. It is harder to live. It requires tolerating discomfort, embracing the unfamiliar, and trusting that the leap is worth it even before you can see the landing. For me, the venture was Japan. The gain was everything that followed — my research direction, my network across Southeast Asia, my understanding of how to ask a question worth answering.

These days I work with carbon dots — fluorescent nanomaterials, a long way from compost. But the curiosity that drives that work? It was born in a Tokyo lab, long after 9 pm, with a scanning electron microscope before me.

It started with one email. It started with curiosity.