Some two thousand students will receive awards from GMIT during the institute’s annual graduation ceremonies, which take place in Galway and Mayo this month.
Conferrings began last week at the college’s Letterfrack campus, with 77 students receiving ordinary and honours bachelor of science degrees and higher certificates. The Letterfrack college is a national centre for excellence in furniture design and technology.
Next week will see some 400 students from the Mayo campus receive awards in business, humanities, technology, nursing and health sciences, and outdoor education on Friday November 9 in the Royal Theatre, Castlebar.
The Galway conferrings will take place over two days in the Radisson Blu Hotel on November 15 and 16. Some 1,550 students will receive higher certificates, degrees, and postgraduate awards in a range of disciplines including business, engineering, hotel and tourism, science and computing, humanities and creative arts. Three conferring sessions will take place each day: Thursday at 11am (School of Science ), 2.30pm (School of Humanities ), and 5.30pm (Hotel School ); and Friday at 11am (School of Engineering ), 2.30pm (School of Business ), and 5pm (School of Business ).
“We are delighted to see the number of graduates exceed the 2,000 mark this year as we celebrate 40 years of serving the region,” says GMIT registrar Michael Hannon.
“To put this number in context, when the RTC Galway opened in 1972 there were just 319 students registered on full-time, third level programmes. Despite the difficult economic times, having a third-level award remains a prerequisite to finding meaningful employment, irrespective of location. GMIT awards are portable and their quality is recognised internationally which gives our graduates every opportunity of success.”
According to GMIT academic administration manager, and conferrings co-ordinator Phil Lydon, this year sees new honours degrees in engineering in architectural technology and construction economics and quantity surveying, higher certificates (Level 6 ) in energy engineering, ordinary degrees in business in event management with PR, and ordinary and honours degrees in social studies.
“Worthy of note also is the sustained interest and growth in the number of graduates on the honours degree in applied biopharmaceutical and healthcare science through distance learning,” Mr Lydon said.
