NUI Galway has experienced major increases in CAO applications for science, engineering, IT and medicine courses.
“Engineering applications have jumped by 39% in first preferences as against a drop nationally of 3.4%,” says the university’s Registrar, Professor Jim Ward.
He says current programmes “are designed to develop students academically and personally, and our partnerships with industry and community play a huge part in the overall design of the courses we offer.”
As our MyScience.ie blog notes: “It will be interesting to watch what levels of demand other universities experience and ultimately how that plays out in the points required for these courses across the board next month, when Leaving Cert results are announced.”
National needs
The university says the major growth in demand for science and engineering places is a direct result of its response to national priorities.
For example, a national need for teachers in mathematics has been identified, so NUI Galway has designed a new BA in Maths and Education to improve the teaching of mathematics – a key part of developing Ireland’s “Smart Economy”. Demand for this programme has grown by 69%.
The college says the big increase in engineering applications reflects new programmes in Energy Systems Engineering, for the rapidly growing energy sector.
It also has an Engineering Innovation programme, which aims to create a new type of engineer with skills in innovation and entrepreneurship – again essential for the Smart Economy.
Research successes
Students studying IT also benefit from the college’s research successes. Its Digital Enterprise Research Institute (DERI) is the leading Semantic Web Institute in the world.
DERI was in the news recently when a piece of its web technology was adopted by the Obama administration to bring greater transparency to the new US government.
The team at DERI have also launched Common Tag, a new tagging format for web pages, in an international collaboration with Yahoo! and other leading internet companies
In the areas of biomedical engineering and biomedical science, the university has integrated courses and research to meet the needs of local industry partners such as Boston Scientific and Medtronic.
Learn more
Read about future open days at NUI Galway for those thinking of studying there
Check out the Digital Enterprise Research Institute’s blog, which includes short videos about its work
