By Marissa V. Foster

TWENTY-ONE-YEAR- OLD Andre Surendre is the only son for his parents, Annette and Rajendra. He was born and raised in the small town of Rose Hall on the Corentyne in the East Berbice- Corentyne region. His childhood was mostly spent with his mom revising notes every day after school. Annette is a firm believer that education can solve any problem and Andre was always rewarded with a game console whenever he performed well at exams. “In high school, I obtained 84 percent in the end-of-term exams, and remedial classes were offered to those students that performed poorly,” he explained, “My mom pranked me that my school called and said I needed to sit in the remedial class as well. I was sad, because that meant less time on my new gaming system, but I really enjoyed the class and made great friendships that are going strong until now. I owe all of my successes to my mom, who placed that value of education in me.”

Andre attended the J.C. Chandisingh Secondary School, where he secured 12 subjects at the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) in 2014, after which he applied for a job at every possible outlet he could find. Unfortunately, his efforts were futile. Andre was either not experienced or he did not have the required business subjects. In 2015, he was granted a scholarship to attend the University of Guyana and applied for the Associate Degree in Biology at the Berbice Campus. The main goal for him was to become a medical doctor; however, as we can all tell, it changed. It changed after he sat in on his first zoology course. “In this course, we were exposed to all the types of animals and we were required to perform toad and frog dissection. I was the surgeon for this exercise,” said Surendre. He took a liking to animals. When he was in the third year, he was recruited as a research assistant for Operation Wallacea (an international organisation that monitors the world’s biodiversity) at the Iwokrama Rainforest Conservation Centre , and worked with Ms. Hannah O’ Sullivan (Herpetologist, London). He saw her drive and how passionate she was about teaching others about Herpetology; it was here when his love for amphibians and reptiles developed more and after one month in the forest. He absolutely fell in love with these two groups of animals and is now aspiring to be a herpetologist.

Currently, he is a final-year biology student at UG and is also the president of the newly established Biology Club. This aspiring herpetologist is also passionate about volunteerism; it extended and led him to become the lead volunteer in the Office for Undergraduate Research. It gave him the opportunity to present his undergraduate dissertation to other students at the Berbice and Turkeyen Campuses. Surendre is also a Student Representative for the University of Guyana Students’ Society (Berbice), where he voices students’ concerns at campus board meetings and ensures that students’ well-being on campus is met. As if his studious hands aren’t already overflowing with work, he also utilises his time by tutoring students in his field of studies. He’s quite impassioned about sharing knowledge to others in any way possible, and this pushed him to be a lab demonstrator at the Johns’ Campus Science Centre, where he mentors Biology students. He stressed that he is a field biologist as he prefers to camp in the forest and stay up in the nights looking for wildlife, rather than sitting in a lab mixing chemicals together.

His biggest challenge in life was losing his father while he was out in the Iwokrama forest, collecting data for his project for a month. He overcame this adversity just by knowing the person he was, his love for nature and travel, learning about new customs and food. Andre explained by saying, “He was ready to relive his life through mine. I’m appreciative of the memories we made together, making burgers and calling them Krabby pattie because I was a picky eater; our trips to French Guiana and Suriname definitely instilled the love for adventure in me. He taught me life values and I hope one day I can grow to be at least half the man he was,” he said.

Andre’s advice to everyone reading his story is, “Work hard! I can’t stress this enough … you have to work hard and study– and know that when you do well, it’s because you worked hard, not luck.” He stressed on his enlightenment for prospective biology students by saying, “Be confident in yourself. You know what you are capable of, and you are almost certainly more capable than you think. Treasure good mentors wherever you find them, because they make you even better. I am lucky to have great lecturers during my journey throughout academia. Volunteer and network. Always volunteer in seminars and workshops, you never know who’s watching and this will give you the opportunity to network with different people from various disciplines. It was through volunteering I got to network with scientists across the globe and recruited a supervisor for my undergraduate thesis. Lastly, don’t forget to have fun, but also be prepared to love your work!”
His goal is to be a conservation biologist with a focus on herpetology, given the high need to protect the animals in the world from going extinct. Andre hopes to pursue a Master’s Degree abroad at Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium and he would like to return to Guyana afterwards to lecture at the University of Guyana. By doing this, he hopes to inspire others as well and teach them the importance of conservation of biodiversity.