Health Science Reviews

by Dean Brink

People warned me even before I got here that honours is a monstrous year. I can see where they were coming from; honours is this terrible mixture of a year’s worth of coursework summarized in 4 months along with the first taste of an actual research project all crammed into a couple of months. Things sometimes feel like they are moving at a breakneck pace, and that combined with the workload, anxiety, plus a good old dose of imposter syndrome can leave you feeling drained and disillusioned with how you even got here.

So, this is the part where I tell you how you can avoid all these problems and manage honours like a champ right? Well not exactly, looking back after half a year of work, I think the truth is that it’s impossible to not mess up at least a little bit. No matter what advice anyone gives I think there’s still going to be a lot of growing pains when you come into this, and honestly, I often felt like I had no idea what I was doing or was somehow doing things wrong, especially at the beginning. But I must emphasize, you will be Ok, this is all part of the process of becoming a scientist. 

You aren’t going to know everything in honours and you’re probably not going to operate at you peak 100% of the time and that’s perfectly fine. This year is all about getting a feel for things and it’s a different experience to undergrad. I found that just by staying persistent and not really lingering on the icky feelings, I was able to really improve by the time lab work rolled around.  Even when I didn’t feel like I was improving, my brain was always sorting stuff out in the background.

I know these ideas are all quite scattershot, and I do apologise. I think the key point I just want to get across is that you are going to be phenomenal. You must believe that even when it is terrible and you really don’t feel phenomenal at all. There will be some growing pains, but you are strong and made it this far, just a little more to go. Take the failures in stride and try not to linger on them – everyone is struggling to some degree in this degree.