Microbiology: Not so difficult, says Masni
JANUARY 13, 1979 – Datin Masni Bahrin (Pic Below) has become the first Brunei woman to get an honours degree – and the subject she selected to achieve this distinction was the very difficult one of medical microbiology.
“But it was not so difficult. Anyone could have done it,” she said modestly.
The official news of her MA pass came from the University of London, just in time to make her Christmas a particularly happy one.
She said she first became interested in the subject when she used to study items through a microscope as a child.
“And it just developed from there. It’s an exciting field because new developments and breakthroughs are being made in microbiology all the time,” she said.
Datin Masni went to school at the Raja Isteri Girls High School (STPRI) and Sultan Omar ‘Ali Saifuddien (SOAS) College before being awarded a scholarship to take a degree in microbiology at the University of Surrey in Guildford.
She graduated with a BSc with honours in 1970, and returned to Brunei to work as a bacteriologist at the hospital here.

The following year she married Pengiran Bahrin bin Pengiran Haji Abas, now Attorney General. The couple have two sons, aged six and four.
In 1976, she returned to England to take her honours degree “and to keep myself abreast of developments”.
“Also, a masters degree is a useful thing to have, and it gives one contact on an international level,” she added.
She spent a year at Hammersmith Hospital and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicines, both attached to the University of London, with her family also in England at the same time to keep her company.
The next year was spent working on a specialist project in bacteriology in Singapore to round off her master’s course, and this was only completed last September.
Datin Masni said she hopes more local women will study to get degrees.
“One shouldn’t just stop at getting married and raising a family. It’s not so difficult at university, but one does have to sacrifice one’s time,” she said. – Robin Alp
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