VRYHEID’S Lust teen, Lateisha McArthur has emerged as the top matriculant at the University of West Indies (UWI) Mona Campus, in Kingston, Jamaica, where she will be pursuing her Bachelor of Medicine on a full Government of Guyana scholarship.

Just last year, Lateisha earned second place in Guyana at the Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE). Before that, she earned 16 Grade Ones, and two Grade Twos at the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) examinations, with top scores in Additional Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, English A and B, Spanish and Agricultural Science.

The 19-year-old Guyanese scholar graduated from Queen’s College (QC) as a valedictorian. McArthur founded Queen’s College’s STEM Robotics Club. Subsequent to this, she served as a captain and a driver for Guyana’s national robotics team at the first global competitions in Greece and Singapore.

Lateisha is also a certified advanced robotics student and STEM Lesson Planner with STEM Guyana. She has been involved in STEM for around five years.

Speaking exclusively with the Guyana Chronicle, Lateisha said she is elated to be this year’s top matriculant.

The brilliant, young Guyanese shared that she chose the medical field because she wants to help those in need; specifically, women.

“I chose the medical field because of what I saw going on with people around me. I want to be a help for those in need, especially with women, seeing how many problems women face, and there’s not much research and help going into the field of gynaecology,” she expressed.

Gaining experience in the medical field, Lateisha was a medical aide at the National Public Health Reference Lab, where she supported diagnostic testing at the national level.

She strongly believes that robots can help in medicine. Although she is not as active in the STEM Club at QC, she is in STEM-Guyana.

Aside from academics and work, Lateisha is involved in a number of extra-curricular activities. These include volunteering with organisations such as the Peace Corps, Cognitive Initiative, and the Guyana Water Inc., using STEM education as a tool to uplift underserved youths; performing leadership roles in over ten student-led organisations, and she served as the Public Relations Officer of the Youth Women Empowerment Movement, and as part of the media team at Freedom Life Ministries Church.
Additionally, she represented QC and Guyana in sports such as cricket, football, basketball, swimming, lawn tennis and track and field at the national level.

In giving words of encouragement to her peers, Lateisha said: “As it relates to doing the many subjects, you know, in Guyana, at first it may feel like, ‘oh my gosh, this is too much’, but at the end, you’ll see how many rewards you could get, like scholarships upon scholarships; and it gets you highlighted to do more stuff and get more opportunities.”

She continued, “In the end, you’ll feel so elated that you past your steps. It was a lot of work, but you won’t even remember how many days you cried and how much hard work you had to put in. You just get to see the results.”

Offering a word of advice, Lateisha opined that it is important to find the study method that works best for you.

“The same thing, the thing that works for somebody won’t work for you. I’ve tried different studying patterns and when I found out what worked for me, I got better and better and got better results overall,” Lateisha noted.