Reliving the university student life experience in Cambridge
Written by Angelina Kakooza Mwesige, THRiVE-2 Postdoc Fellow
Visiting the University of Cambridge over the late autumn/early winter 2019 was an adventurous experience for me because I left the comfort zone of Makerere University in Uganda and opened myself up to the experience of studying in a foreign country, meeting new students, new faculty, all with different norms and customs to what I was familiar with. Staying in Cambridge brought back fond memories of when I lived a university student life. They always say that university days are the best days ever and it is dead right.
These nostalgic memories were rekindled by the atmosphere of student life at Churchill College where I resided during my stay. This involved the meeting of lots of new people some of whom were international students as I was and relating to them very easily along with the feeling in the air that “everything is possible” . The first few days of my visit were quite exciting, since everything was new, so different and somewhat sophisticated, compared to back home, the ambience, the people, the everyday amenities and the academic climate, all making me feel that joy that coming to Cambridge known as ‘one of the world’s top and prestigious Universities’ was the best decision to have made in my career. There was hardly any initial culture shock in arriving to the UK from warm, sunny Kampala, Uganda at 27-320C to cold, rainy Cambridge at 2-40C, having frequently counselled myself during the preparation of my visit about the weather to expect including the long dark nights.
I had my own room in the student hall of residence with a shared toilet, bathroom and kitchen. The accommodation was self-catering, which meant I could go the supermarket, buy what I wanted to eat, and cook and eat piping hot meals whenever I wanted to. Fortunately, I did not have to travel with the saucepans, plates and cutlery from Uganda because the THRiVE coordinator, kindly provided them for my use. I found the other students living on my floor of residence very respectful and helpful especially when teaching me how to use the various electrical appliances and finding my way around. These students also showed positive academic conduct limiting unnecessary noise and studying hard during the night. During my stay there were no episodes of a “party zone” on our floor, however over the weekends it almost became the norm that for one reason or the other the fire alarm kept being triggered on Saturday evenings between 5.30 to 9.00pm. The fire alarm experience was quite new for me; I was impressed by the discipline of the students evacuating the building in an orderly manner using the nearest available emergency exit to assemble at the designated areas. Whereas all the fire alarms were false (fortunately), it was humorous to see students all clad in a variety of dressing from night dresses, pyjamas, to casual T-shirt and shorts with either a phone or cup of coffee in their hand braving the chilly winter weather as they waited for the alarm to go off and they return to their rooms. Indeed their behaviour was appropriate in responding to the emergency fire alarm siren. The safety precaution against fire exhibited by the Churchill Hill administration is very recommendable and should be emulated by our University colleges back home. The porters at Churchill College too were very prompt at attending to you with interest in addressing your respective concerns.
On my first official day, I met with one of my mentors, Prof. Ian GoodFellow, in the Department of Pathology, Division of Virology, who warmly welcomed me and introduced me to the members of his lab. The other mentor, Dr. Luke Meredith was away in South Sudan setting up a number of Ebola diagnostic laboratories along the South Sudan border. One of the group members Ms. Anna Yakovleva, was of tremendous help in showing me around the lab and teaching me the skills of how to carry out an Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent assay (ELISA) test to test for the Zika virus in mice sera and how to interpret the findings. I hope to use this knowledge to conduct ELISA experiments following standard set protocols on the blood and urine samples I have collected in Uganda. Prof. Ian GoodFellow ‘s lab is large and very well equipped, having other PhD and post doc students who were very helpful in giving me tips on how to carry out certain laboratory techniques as well as providing good company whenever we had breaks for lunch or tea in the common room.
After acquiring the skills in conducting an ELISA test, I changed my location to the Department of Veterinary Medicine, at the Laboratory of Viral Zoonotics with my acting mentor, Dr. Barbara Blacklaws. At this lab, Dr. Blacklaws was extremely helpful and introduced me to the other members of her group. One of the group members Dr. Sam Stubbs taught me how to carry out RNA/DNA polymerase chain reaction tests and the science behind it. In addition, Dr. Constanza Toro taught me the technique of DNA extraction from animal tissue by observing an experiment of how to extract DNA from the tissue of a dead seal.
In my final week I was privileged to have a Clinical Observer ship at the Paediatric Neurology Ward rounds at the Addenbrooke’s Hospital, which is an internationally recognised teaching hospital and research centre in Cambridge, with strong links to the University of Cambridge. The Clinical Observership was under the mentorship of Dr. Alasdair Parker, a paediatric neurologist. During this attachment I was able to observe the care of very sick children with medical and/or surgical neurological conditions in a very well organised work place. It was also very refreshing to participate in a multi-professional ward round in which the management of the complicated neurology cases on the ward were discussed by a team including a speech and language therapist, occupational therapist, physiotherapist, neurologist, play therapist, epilepsy nurse, and several registrars. This experience helped to improve my knowledge regarding neurological conditions presenting to this hospital and further sharpen my clinical skills in paediatric neurology care. This advance in knowledge and skills will contribute to enriching the paediatric neurology practice in Uganda, as well as the teaching of the medical students.
My stay in Cambridge presented other opportunities as well, I attended two large symposia. One was entitled “Public Health@Cambridge Annual Showcase: Planetary Health”, where I learnt how the planet Earth has been vandalised by man in various ways, it effects on the climate and what needs to be done to halt the trend of events. The second symposium was entitled “Cambridge Infectious Diseases Annual Meeting of Minds Symposium 2019” where I learnt about the ‘state of the art’ research being conducted on various human infections such as Malaria, HIV/AIDS, Herpes virus and Rotavirus. I was able to network with several participants at this well attended meeting and hopefully the collaborations will be further developed using some of these highly technological methods to study some infectious diseases in Uganda. I also attended a Virology Seminar Lecture series and the Autism Research Club Talks. The information from these talks is very relevant to my practice and also to share with my research group on Autism back home.
Finally before I knew it, I realized I had made several new friends, was starting to get familiar with Cambridgeshire, the customs, the people, the place – the local shops, church and parks, attend Christmas parties (courtesy of Dr. Blacklaws) – and slowly but surely was starting to feel at home but then the time was up and I had to return to Uganda. In the end all I can say when you visit Cambridge plan to stay for a minimum of six weeks, have an open mind and savour whatever fate throws on your plate, network, become a university student for a little while for these special moments of being a university student are brief and sweet and who knows may be the most special moments that you have of your experience in Cambridge.
Over all, my visit to the University of Cambridge was a very productive experience and I am glad I made the most out of it. I am grateful for the support from the DELTAS Africa Initiative grant # DEL-15-011 to THRiVE-2 program, the THRiVE 2 Coordinator, my post doc collaborators at Makerere and Cambridge, Makerere University for granting me leave of absence from my duties and the Cambridge Africa administrators who made my stay in Cambridge a very worthwhile experience especially when we had to do some firefighting following my laptop crash.
The training I received during my visit to the University of Cambridge has impacted my skills capacity and built my knowledge towards understanding the ELISA tests, DNA PCR tests and Next generation genomic sequencing. These skills will be very instrumental in my post-doctoral project and future research projects.