By Grace Van Heerden  I have always been told “life is not just black and white”, but that there are shades of grey. Honours has taught me to have this outlook, especially in terms of my successes. I have often had the mindset that once you set a goal for yourself, you go out and…

By Rirhandzu Precious Mkhari If I think very hard, I can probably make a plan and come up with a very good story that can be quite “convincing”. One that can make someone happy or sad, whichever is more interesting. However, I choose to be honest on this one. In fact, I opt to pill off…

By Sima Bongo Let us conduct a review of the journey of a young scientist to understand what makes a scientist. Background: In a perfect Disney movie, the story starts in a faraway land filled lots of joy and laughter and overall peace then suddenly something terrible happens, and the main character has to do…

By Dakalo Ratshivhombela My entry ticket into honours came from the intercalated program, an opportunity I hold with boundless gratitude and humility. I could have never predicted I would venture into this part of my medical school journey, and neither was I ever certain of it when I did. Every directive to pursue the next…

By Sherin Nkosi Oh my, where do I even begin? I suppose the best place to start is at the very beginning. My Honours year at the University of Cape Town (UCT) began with an unexpected twist—I was two days late for my first class. This minor delay could have set the tone for the…

By Dana Chiles “Red light, green light” was a game my mom and I would play after every day in primary school. I’d run over and she would ask “How was your day? What was your red and green light?”. So, I thought I would play it today with you. Your “red light” is a…

By Siyabonga Hlubi Honours has been a whirlwind of emotions there are some days where I wake up feeling like I am on top of the world and others where I question everything. I’ve learned to have faith in myself while accepting my flaws. Every single day, I feel incredibly fortunate to be here. When…

By Hayley Marais My journey to this honour’s year began in Grade 8 in 2016. I read a book called “Brain on Fire” and it sparked a deep dive into a rabbit hole of information about the brain, and from that moment on I couldn’t stop reading anything I could about the brain and all…

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,…

By Yeuko Manganyi It goes without saying that school is difficult, well, maybe difficult isn’t the best description but definitely challenging. The time, effort and mental bandwidth it requires is something that I think a lot of us in the honours group have had to grow accustomed to, all the way through undergrad to what…