Health Science Reviews

By Humaaira Wahab

At the beginning of the year, I felt so overwhelmed for my honours year because I knew it would be more intense than my undergraduate years and I didn’t know what to expect and if I’d be able to cope. Looking at all the other honours students, when I first got here, I honestly didn’t think that I was supposed to be at UCT, because they all seemed really intelligent, and on it, and I was pretty average. When we had our first class, with the calculations, during the general techniques course, I felt so stupid because I had to recall the work I did in second year, and I didn’t really remember much. But we wrote the test, and I got my marks back and I was like ‘Damn, maybe I will be fine here’.

I’m a really shy person so I didn’t really interact with many people when I first got here, but I got introduced to so many people and eventually the Human Genetics kids. I’ve grown so close to the people I have met in the past few months, and I honestly could not have gotten through this year without them.

Once all the honourlings got separated into their respective streams, the Human Genetics kids had a laboratory course where we had to do experiments to determine what our blood type was. This involved us needing to have our own blood drawn, which I’ve never done before and I was so scared, but my fellow honourlings and the nurse convinced me that it’d all be okay, and I did it! Classes started and it was actually really interesting, I enjoyed it…especially the company. Every now and then, we would go for our ‘mental health walks’ after class and I used to get a donut (those donuts are so good), was the cutest thing ever. Then UCT started giving out soup for winter and we all couldn’t wait to get soup after class. The chicken and mushroom one, and the butternut one slaps!

We’ve all been so used to going to class, studying, and writing exams our whole lives. It felt so weird coming back this semester and not having a proper schedule, like our class schedules, since it’s all about our research projects. I honestly love doing lab work, so I was really looking forward to this part of the project. Close to the end of last semester and the beginning of this semester, I had to go ‘play’ in the freezers to look for my samples and I was known for always being in the freezers. It was such a mission to find samples, and I ended up only finding a portion of what I actually needed which was a bit lame. I’m almost done with my lab work now and I’m kind of sad about it because after it is just bioinformatics, which isn’t my strong suit at the moment, but I’ll get there.

So far, this year has gone way better than I expected it to and I’m so glad to have met the people I have. It has also been really fun, with lots of laughs, and everyone here is really helpful and kind. It’s like a breath of fresh air.