Effective immunity to parasites could save lives

 

Parasites cause illness like malaria and diseases in livestock. Understanding the parasites could make it possible to make humans and animals develop long-lasting immunity to specific parasites.

 

When Nermina (BSc in Veterinary Medicine) is studying a specific parasite everyday, contributing to the improvement of human and animal health is what drives her. That is the reason why she has chosen the Parasitology programme at LIFE.

 

When choosing LIFE, Nermina knew that she would be studying at a top ten university faculty in the field of animals and plants. She has found this status to be well deserved. After only a few months in the programme, she has gained a full review of the parasitology field of research through an excellent intro course and she has experienced that students are taken seriously by professors and are encouraged to contribute in class in many ways – e.g. by asking questions and performing research them selves.

 

“The hands-on approach to education at LIFE is brilliant and prepares students for a career in research”, Nermina says.

 

Even though there is still one year of studies left before she will be making her thesis she is already looking forward to the opportunity to make individual research in a specific parasite as the basis of her thesis.

 

International study environment

Apart from choosing the Parasitology programme at LIFE for its reputation of excellence, Nermina chose to study abroad to explore other scientific cultures and gain intercultural perspectives on her own culture and academic approach. This ambition has been fulfilled as students in the Parasitology programme comes from all over the world.

 

All of her fellow students, she met prior to the beginning of the programme when they all participated in the International Graduate Orientation Programme offered by the Faculty administration.

 

“The IGOP programme was very interesting and taught me to be open to other cultures and approaches”, Nermina says.

 

She highlights that the programme is educational, recreational and practical – as well as good fun. It gives you the opportunity to make friends with people from all over the world through a number of social activities.

 

In general, Nermina has appreciated the many activities for international students organised by the Faculty throughout the semester. In her experience, Danish students and staff are helpful and open and they have excellent English skills which makes it easy to talk to each other.

 

In touch with real life

The daily contact to other international students makes Nermina feel that she will gain important international competences that she can use in her future career. This aspect is of great importance to her as the Parasitology programme has world wide relevance and is based on real life cases from around the globe.

 

Currently, Nermina would like to pursue a research career back home in Bosnia-Herzegovinia and she believes that the likeliness of success is high with a degree from an internationally recognised university in this field of studies.

 

Nermina Vejzagic, Bosnia-Herzegovinia

1st year MSc student (Parasitology)