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Welcome to the University of Ulster Graduation website.

The links above take you to the latest news stories and press releases, graduation lists for each specific ceremony and day and a photo gallery where graduation day photos will be uploaded. Congratulations to everyone graduating during the Winter 2009 ceremonies. We hope your graduation day at the University of Ulster proves to be a truly memorable occasion.

Graduation Press Releases - Winter 2009:

Prize-Winner Lee Follows His Vocation

Lee Baxter brings to his new job a wealth of experience rare among new graduates. Lee receives a BSc Honours in Mental Health Nursing today at the University of Ulster’s winter graduation ceremony in Coleraine. For the 25-year-old, who lives in the Galliagh areas of Londonderry, it is a high point in a calling that he never mapped out – but which seems always to have been his natural life’s path.  His next step in his caring profession is the job he starts soon as a senior project worker at Foyle Haven, a drop-in centre for street drinkers in Derry. As a six-year old he did first aid with St John’s Ambulance. At 18, leaving secondary school with four O-levels, a patchy attendance record and not much motivation, he ‘kind of fell into’ a job as a key support worker in the Methodist City Mission for homeless men in Crawford Square. Many of the clients he worked with had mental health problems. After two-and-a-half years, he did a foundation course in health and welfare at the North West Regional College and was accepted for mental health nursing studies at Magee.  “It wasn’t necessarily that I wanted to do nursing but it just sort of fitted the profile of what I enjoyed doing. It was just eight months before I got my degree that it hit me, that I was going to be a nurse and that it would my job title for the rest of my life.”  Meantime, as a student he had continued to work at the Methodist City Mission, putting learning into action in practical ways. “I absolutely loved the university course, though it was hard work too. The lecturers and the support system at Magee were outstanding,” he says. Professionally, Lee has come a long way. After practical training placements and an academically challenging course, he was awarded a 1st Class Honours degree and also won the Donald Dawson Memorial Trust Award for excellence in mental health nursing care. He is looking forward to his new role at Foyle Haven.  “I’m going to be able to apply the skills that I’ve brought from the Methodist Mission, but also fulfil a nursing role. So, I’ll be combining the two things that I’ve been doing for the past six years.”

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