Ashwaq is a foreign student from Syria and she finished her PhD in INFORMM in year 2018. The title of her talk was “What INFORMM added to my life” and it was attended by 30 participants through Webex Session. In her talk, Ashwaq shared her experiences along the journey before, during and after her PhD study in INFORMM. She related the difficulties she faced in each stage and her strategies to stay on track for graduation on time. She reiterated on how to fully utilise the knowledge and experiences she gained from her PhD study in her work now. Her advice to her juniors to manage their time efficiently, to establish networking and to keep their future career in mind was well received.