-make Dean’s List, Honours Roll

By Ravin Singh in Kingston

IT will perhaps never be too clichéd to say that Guyanese always etch their names in the halls of academia in whichever part of the world they’re sent.
Today, that story continues with two of the country’s youngest, most brilliant minds who were recently awarded for excellence at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona campus in Jamaica.

No strangers to excellence, Larissa Wiltshire and Elisa Hamilton, both scholarship students, made the Dean’s list and Honours list for the Faculty of Medical Sciences for the academic year 2016/2017.

To make the Dean’s list, one must have a grade point average (GPA) of 3.7 or above, which both young ladies achieved. Wiltshire went even further to cop the coveted award of making the Honours Roll, which is awarded to only the top two students in each class.
Wiltshire is reading for her Doctors of Dental Surgery (DDS) degree, while Hamilton is pursuing a Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) degree. Both young ladies were awarded scholarships by the Government of Guyana after their stellar performances at the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) and the Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE).

For 19-year-old Wiltshire, the awards were the fruits of her labour, as she had invested much time and dedication in her studies.
“It was also time-consuming, and required a lot of dedication,” she said. “I wouldn’t necessarily say it was either challenging or easy, because, to me, it’s just a lot of work that you have to focus on, and set your mind to learning and understanding,” she told the Guyana Chronicle.

She admitted, though, that the news of her achievement brought her much joy, as it was something for which she had worked extremely hard. She said, too, that it was not only an achievement for her, but her country as well, as she is still an ambassador of Guyana.
For Hamilton, however, the year was much more challenging.
“My first year was challenging,” she said. “I had to deal with a whole lot of things besides studying. I had to deal with being away from my family, and for me, that was extremely hard.

“After the first month, I wanted to return home.”
The 19-year-old said she also had to deal with cooking, cleaning and having to do her own groceries. She couldn’t help laughing while relating that she even asked herself once, “Oh my gosh, why am I adulating?”
But, by and by, she said, she was able to eventually balance her domestic, social and academic life.

“It took a lot of prayers,” Elisa said. “Sometimes ‘med’ school got extremely stressful, and I felt overwhelmed at times.” But by the second semester, she was more understanding of what was required of her.
The aspiring medical doctor said that having used the second semester to assess her performance in the first semester, in terms of what were her strengths and weaknesses, and was able to move on from there.

And because of her ability to adjust herself, Hamilton successfully attained straight ‘A’s in her second semester. She was actually surprised, she said, when she received an email informing her that she had won the award, since she did not know such an award existed.
“One night I was studying and decided to check my email, and I saw the message that I was an awardee,” she said.

“I was happy to be on it; it was encouraging and motivating because of how challenging my year had been.”
For her, medical school is a work in progress. She believes that an integral part of her success is prayers, and the support she receives not only from friends and family back home, but from those in Jamaica.