2040 students to be conferred with GMIT awards

Over 2,000 students are to be conferred with GMIT awards at the annual GMIT Conferrings in Galway and Mayo this month and next (November).

The first GMIT Conferrings took place in the Letterfrack campus, the National Centre for Excellence in Furniture Design and Technology, on Friday 26 October, when 77 students were conferred with ordinary and honours Bachelor of Science degrees and Higher Certificates.

Just over 400 students from the Mayo campus will be conferred on Friday week, 9 November, in the Royal Theatre, Castlebar, with awards in Business, Humanities, Technology, Nursing & Health Sciences, and Outdoor Education. Due to the increase in the number of graduates, there will be two conferring sessions on the day - 11.30am and 3pm.

The Galway Conferrings will take place over two days in the Radisson Blu Hotel on Thursday and Friday, 15 and 16 November. Some 1,550 students will be conferred with Higher Certificates, Degrees, and postgraduate awards in a range of disciplines including Business, Engineering, Hotel & Tourism, Science & 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).

GMIT Registrar Michael Hannon says: “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. 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 pre-requisite 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.”

GMIT Academic Administration Manager, and Conferrings Co-ordinator, Phil Lydon says: “This year sees new honours degrees in Engineering in Architectural Technology and Construction Economics & 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.”