By Charmilla Nyakutira
When they told us the honours year would be intense, they weren’t exaggerating. We hit the ground running with a few moments here and there to catch our breath before diving back in. I personally felt out of my depth at times. The experience so far has been quite humbling, and you realise how much more is out there and how little you actually know.
Looking back at the earlier weeks when we started our journey, my biggest regret would be not answering more questions. I had been out of lecture halls for a while and returning for my honours was like being in undergrad 1st year all over again. Like most, I think I was afraid of looking stupid in front of other people. Everyone in the room was intelligent in their own right
and it was especially intimidating when someone gave an answer you would have never thought of. I also kicked myself several times when I thought of an answer but I was too timid to say it out loud.
I was finally at the university of my dreams but with a severe case of imposter syndrome. Even worse, I was letting my ego stop me from participating. I had to remind myself that if I’m in the room too, then I also had what it takes. I didn’t want to spend the rest of the semester robbing myself of this experience, so I started small. I answered questions when I could think of possible answers, sometimes I was right and sometimes I was wrong. When I was wrong, the world didn’t end, the lecturer didn’t expel me on the spot and no one laughed (to my relief). Instead, the lecturer would engage in a dialogue, and I would walk away knowing more than I did before. Of course I wasn’t answering questions left, right and center, but I was participating, I was learning. If I could go back and give myself advice , I would encourage myself to let go of that fear of being wrong, and to ask and answer questions. Even if you answer or ask just one question, you will be happier than if you didn’t. I think this year has helped me gain a bit more confidence in myself and has allowed me to get comfortable with being wrong sometimes. I think that’s a really important quality in a scientist, to be flexible enough to accept new knowledge and seek it out.
As weeks turned into months, it was finally time to pick a project and I struggled quite a bit here. I wanted to do it all. It also felt like a life defining decision. After some sleepless nights and approaching different supervisors,I chose to work on characterising the D4Z4 repeat region in individuals of African ancestry. The genetics aspect and prospects of genomic equity were really appealing to me. Working through the proposal, getting feedback and presenting my proposal to the research team, attending seminars and seeing other people’s work, all these things have made me feel like a real scientist, or at least one in training.
An experience that has stayed with me thus far was the curveball my supervisor threw me one Friday afternoon. I had to interpret some data I was unfamiliar with. I played it cool, accepting the challenge in a light hearted manner. That weekend was one of the most stressful times for me in recent memory. Not knowing is something you will always encounter in science, and the “how to find out” part is in my opinion the most valuable thing about a scientist. All I knew was the data was an IGV screenshot and I went from there. I consulted the IGV manual, found a tutorial series(shout out to the Sarah Dean, PhD channel on youtube) and read a couple of papers on how to interpret the data. When the Monday morning meeting came, I successfully
interpreted the data. The whole moment couldn’t have been more than 5 minutes. In retrospect, it was not even a particularly difficult task, but it felt impossible from my perspective as a complete beginner. Perspective is important. Is it an impossible task, or are you simply lacking enough context on how to approach the problem? Obviously some things are difficult even when you know how to approach the problem, but difficult doesn’t mean impossible. It’s easy to forget this when you’re feeling overwhelmed and it’s something I always have to remind myself of.
Going into the exams, I honestly felt underprepared. Normally, from undergrad, you have past papers to help you get an idea of what is expected of you, but they weren’t made available. I had to rethink how I approach exam prep and I don’t know if my efforts will be reflected by the results. But I can say, I did my best to prepare. No matter the results, I can only learn and
improve from the experience.
I came into bioinformatics with mostly a biology background and less knowledge of the computing side of things. Sometimes I feel like I know completely nothing, and it can be frightening thinking of where to even begin. Leaning on my peers and supervisors, I’m starting to build a foundation I can be proud of. This semester, it’s full speed ahead with the research project. I don’t know what to expect but I know my experience so far has helped prepare me, even in ways I haven’t realised yet.
I wish everyone reading this all the best in their pursuits. We’ve made it this far and we’ll make it to the end.
Leave a Reply