Health Science Reviews

by Jana Van Der Westhuizen 

Coming from a small town, Stellenbosch, the idea of Cape Town has always been very daunting. But, to my surprise, I have met the most amazing people. I made a very special friend at the beginning of the year, that grew very close to my heart. This person always greeted me with the biggest smile and always asked me how I am doing. He really taught me that a smile and a friendly face can really make a big difference, even for a stranger. We became such good friends that I even started teaching him my home language, Afrikaans, on a daily basis. Every day he would give me a new interesting word, my favourite is “springmielies”. Wherever I go, I will never forget his kind heart.

The thing that I am most baffled with this year, is with how little amount of knowledge I stepped in here and how much more I know now. Thinking about it now, I will probably say the exact same thing next year this time around. I really learnt something new every single day. Another lesson I learnt this year, is that every person you meet in the field of academics, have something new to teach or show you. You will never truly understand and know everything and that is something I had to make peace with.

Between the many challenges our honours group had to fight through, from finding parking in the morning to repeating PCRs for unimaginable amount of times, I think we did a good job coming out the other end. Good things don’t come easy. We know now how hard you have to work to get results that you are proud of. That is all that matters at the end of the day, you should be happy with yourself and the work you have produced, because to be totally blunt no one else will care half as much as you do. At the end of this year, we are more patient, courageous and most definitely humbled.