Student Stories: Overcoming Hurdles to Study at NUI Galway

These past four years went by so quickly that it still amazes me that I’ve graduated.  

I was overjoyed, surprised and nervous to be accepted into this course at first as I was the first and only international student in the programme, but that didn’t deter me from achieving my dream and striving to make new friendships.  

The course in itself was challenging, plus it was also hard to adapt at first due to the different culture and lifestyle, but I was able to overcome those hurdles because of my friends and faculty members who were all very friendly, welcoming and eager to lend a helping hand.  

If there was something I was not sure of or if I had an opinion, the faculty always made the time to accept and answer my queries and worries.  

It was especially hard when the pandemic started, our third year clinical placements got cancelled but luckily we finished all our classes. The faculty put in a lot of effort to come up with an alternative to replace our missing learning experience and it was a success.  

Thanks to them, we pioneered the use of Attend Anywhere, a telehealth platform to provide speech and language therapy services to our clients virtually. For the first time as well, we were able to deliver a virtual communication awareness training programme to a group of hospitality students from another university which was usually done in person.  

The faculty members have done so much to come up with creative ways to facilitate our learning – I would like to thank them again from the bottom of my heart because I would not have been able to graduate without their help.  

I am also grateful for the wonderful friendships I’ve made, they taught me Irish humour and banter which has helped me when I interact with clients on clinical placements.  

I absolutely enjoyed studying at NUIG, they have a great support system, wonderful staff members and a positive environment to study in. I will always remember the memories I made here.