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Alumni of Republic Polytechnic (RP), Priyangi Alwis, who has just graduated as a scholar of Monash University, tells us all about her dangerous love interest – bacteria: how it is an essential part of us and how it can also kills us.
Priyangi Alwis, who is also the Lee Kuan Yew Award for Mathematics and Science recipient in 2008, is your friendly girl-next-door, but with a brilliant mind. She is one who will volunteer complicated scientific terms with simple layman explanations.
Even with four university scholarships under her belt, there is not a whiff of arrogance in this RP graduate with an Advanced Diploma in Biomedical Sciences. The first two scholarships subsidised her tuition fees for her bachelor and honours’ programme at Monash University, and since she had graduated with a first class honours degree and applied to pursue her doctoral studies in the same field to see her through her PhD studies fully, as well as pay her a comfortable stipend.
Merely turning 22 this year, Priya, as she prefers to be called, is about to embark on her doctorate studies in Microbiology at Monash University.
She is the second RP student who has come this far via the institutes’ joint International Programme in Biomedical Science (IPBMS), which gives two-year exemption credits to polytechnic students who obtain good grades.
Priya credits RP for its progressive Problem-based Learning approach to learning which triggers her curiosity. She adds, “RP teaches us a lot of things and they are not just facts, since facts are immaterial as you forget them after two weeks. What we learn is how to think and how to learn. For instance if you are given a problem, what do you do first, how do you work through it, and if you need information, where do you go? We learn to accept that there are many ways to go about it, and also that through repetition and practice, these skills stay throughout.”
Priya’s area of specialisation is in the study of the pathogenic bacterium Burkholderia pseudomallei. Although a mouthful, she says it with zero hassle and even raves about it before confiding that her other interests spans from reading Wikipedia for fun to drawing and writing.
“I know it sounds crazy but there are a lot of interesting articles on Wikipedia. However, it was only when I came to RP that I started to get scholarships, and I continued to get them when I went to Monash. So I think something happened to me at RP – I adopted a different way of studying that made me think differently, and it carried on at Monash,” quips Priya.
What is IPBMS?
The International Programme in Biomedical Sciences (IPBMS) is a collaborative effort between Republic Polytechnic and the Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences at Monash University, Australia. It offers students with a Diploma in Biomedical Sciences (DBMS) a fast track to a degree.
How can IPBMS benefit students?
Students with a Diploma in Biomedical Sciences who qualify to apply for admission can be admitted to the final year of a three-year Bachelor of Biomedical Science course at Monash University. These students complete the degree programme in 10 months, and would then have the option for further studies, for instance to obtain an honours or a masters degree and beyond.
Who qualifies for IPBMS and how do you apply for it?
The IPBMS is open to students who enrolled in Republic Polytechnic’s Diploma in Biomedical Sciences programme. At the beginning of their third year, students who apply are selected based on academic merit.
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