A student's journey from Pakistan to Shandong

Muhammad Ijaz poses for a photo in Qingdao, Shandong province. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

In the field of medicine, the importance of drugs and medicine cannot be neglected. A doctor can prescribe medicine but cannot treat a patient without the medicine. I have always enjoyed being a pharmacist. When I graduated from University of Lahore, the top ranked university in Pakistan, I was wondering about my future as it was tough for a pharmacist to find a suitable job. I had joined a public sector job in a hospital pharmacy as clinical pharmacist. One day my elder brother called me and asked me to prepare my documents for application, and later I applied for master's degree in Shandong University. I never imagined that I would get Chinese government scholarship from one of the most prestigious universities in the world.

The day I arrived at the university, my life changed forever. I had the privilege to work under the supervision of Professor Wang Fengshan dean of College of Medicine. He polished my skills in the basic research and guided me step by step to excel in research. It was an amazing experience and honor to be the first foreign master's degree student in the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences. My first day at the class was unforgettable. I arrived in the classroom along with my teacher and my classmates stood up to welcome me as they welcome the professors. I was quite astonished and happy to see the honor from my fellows. Before my admission, all the presentations, classes and seminars were conducted in Chinese language, but soon after my arrival, Wang made it necessary for all the students to speak and present their work in English. It was a good idea for Chinese students and an excellent opportunity to learn English but it was not as good for me to learn Chinese language. However later during the lab work and daily communication I started to learn Chinese and now I am glad to be able to speak Chinese in daily communication with the Chinese people.

Under the supervision of Wang, I started working on my research in 2015; my research topic was "Grb2 involvement in cancer". I conducted the experiments and sometimes it was late night when I finished my experiments. In the beginning it was tough to achieve good results. It took me more than two years and more than 3 attempts to achieve the desired results.

I had a dream to participate in some volunteer activities to help the needy. After arriving in China, I had the chance to join the International Education Charity organization to give free English lessons for the remote areas Chinese students. I was awarded from the Shandong provincial bureau for the activity. Later I had the privilege to participate in the One Belt One Road Initiative open discussion to discuss about how the economic corridor CPEC can become health corridor. I mentioned the feasibilities and opportunities the CPEC can bring for the two nations to make the Pakistan-China friendship bond stronger.

I have been working on cancer pharmacology and I will continue to work in this field to find the cure for cancer. I would like to thank CSC (China Scholarship Council) and Shandong University for giving me the opportunity to get master's degree. I Love Shandong University.

Muhammad Ijaz is a China Scholarship Council recipient at School of Pharmaceutical Sciences of Shandong University.