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21 April 2022 | Story Lunga Luthuli | Photo Supplied
Lizandré Mulder
Lizandré Mulder, University of the Free State LLB graduate, does not believe in having a role model, but in striving to be a better version of herself.

Moving from Jansenville – a town outside Uitenhage – to Bloemfontein for her LLB studies, things got off to a shaky start for Lizandré Mulder. New in a ‘big town’, the ‘country girl’ felt out of her element and not used to big-city life. Thanks to her lecturers, the journey to a legal qualification at the University of the Free State (UFS) ended with an average final-year mark of 80% for the Law graduate.

Back in Jansenville, Lizandré’s neighbour nicknamed her ‘klein prokureurtjie (little lawyer)’ as she was growing up, because she had a ‘habit of arguing’, which motivated her to choose law as a career. She says, “arguing with facts earlier, has turned into a passion”. “The competitive side of me always wants to win; I guess that makes me the perfect candidate for a future advocate,” she says.

Managing undergraduate studies, Lizandré – who is also an accomplished athlete – says all she did was study and train. “The only thing I struggled with was my sleeping schedule, as I was constantly tired from hard training, and I studied till the morning hours while I had to wake up again early for morning training.”

The track, field, and cross-country runner has received numerous national medals for the sport and will unfortunately miss the invitation to the annual Excellence Awards in the Faculty of Law, as she will be competing in this year’s South African Athletics Championships in Cape Town on 22 April 2022.

Graduating with the LLB degree, Lizandré plans to finish her master’s degree with a possible topic on the legality of human gene editing in South Africa for the purposes of disease treatment or the prevention thereof.

Lizandré does not believe in having a role model, but to “always try to better myself in every aspect of life. I always believed that true inspiration and motivation come from within”.

After completing her master’s degree, Lizandré will decide on her future career path. She says: “I am still deciding whether I want to remain in Bloemfontein or relocate to Potchefstroom, as the latter has a law firm specialising in medical negligence, a field I would like to specialise in. Besides this, the two cities also boast the best athletics coaches in DB Prinsloo, Head of KovsieSport, and Jean Verster in Potchefstroom has mentored South African award-winning runner, Caster Semenya.

“Somewhere in the future, I definitely also plan on doing my doctoral degree in Law,” says Lizandré.

News Archive

Shuttle services for senior medical students
2011-09-26

 

Senior medical students who make use of the shuttle services are standing next to the mini-bus.

On Friday, 30 September 2011, our university will officially launch its shuttle service for medical students. This function will take place from 12:00 to 13:00 at the Faculty of Health Sciences’ CJC Nel Reception Venue in the Francois Retief Building on our Bloemfontein Campus.

Two years ago. Dr Scarpa Schoeman began working at Internal Medicine at our Faculty of Health Sciences. Early on, he identified the transport problems of fourth- and fifth-year medical students (Phase-3 students) in the English class.
 
There are 65 Phase-3 students in the English class who are currently struggling with transport and who are part of this project. About 90% of them are bursary students at the university who, according to Schoeman, are consequently also struggling with finances. These students used public transport like taxis to move between hospital rounds and classes in the past. On average, it would cost them up to R4 000 per year for these daily travels between the UFS and the various training hospitals.
 
By the end of March 2011, NetCare had donated two mini-busses to the UFS and since 11 April, the shuttle services were available to medical students. Prof. Gert van Zyl (Dean of our Faculty of Health Sciences), Mr Mickey Gordon (Head: Marketing, Institutional Advancement and Sport) and the Rector, Prof. Jonathan Jansen, negotiated with NetCare. Gordon was also responsible for the branding of the busses. PPS and Pfizer are both sponsors who contributed to this.
 
This project is managed by Dr Schoeman, assisted by Mrs Anne-Marie Nel, who handles the administration as the Phase-3 secretary.
 
“It is important for us from the project management that students won’t see this as another taxi, but as a shuttle service of the university. Any senior medical student may make use of it, but it is mainly the under-privileged student from the English class who makes use of it.”
 
The two Quantum mini-busses do the circuit according to fixed schedules each day.  The route starts at the Francois Retief Building on our Bloemfontein Campus and then travels to the National Hospital, the Free State Psychiatric Complex (Oranje), Pelonomi, 3 Military Hospital (at Tempe) and then back again to Universitas Hospital.

 

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