Trematodes: It Was Just a Fluke

I started my teaching career at the School of Biological Sciences, and later the Department of Zoology when the School was split into separate departments, at the University of Malaya (UM) in Kuala Lumpur in late 1971. I like teaching and interacting with young enquiring minds and immediately realized that I had somehow stumbled onto a dream job and that life in academia was the life I wanted. During those days, starting out as junior faculty member meant teaching large undergraduate classes of about a hundred, but I was fortunate also to teach the elite “Honors” class usually of just ten to twelve students who had been rigorously selected to complete their final year by doing research for an Honors Thesis. In a developing country like Malaysia in the 1970s, which had only two universities then, the other being the newly formed Penang University (since renamed Universiti Sains Malaysia or USM), it meant that the students in the Honors classes were indeed the creme de la creme of the entire country. It was therefore a privilege to mentor these very smart and eager students in their research projects.