First Trust Bank Convocation Undergraduate Student of the Year award

2020 Winner: Jenny Lynsey

During the first year of her Interactive Media degree in 2017, Jenny helped to deliver the Generation Animation programme, which was a collaboration between the School of Communication and Media and two local primary schools. Using digital animation apps, Jenny helped to deliver an ‘Introduction to Animation’ programme to local widening access schools.

This was Jenny’s first experience of volunteering and teaching at university. It was a highly successful programme, winning the Best Voluntary Project of the Year at the UUSU Awards, and securing a second round of funding, with Jenny completing a second year of delivering the programme in 2018. Jenny is deaf but this has never inhibited her appetite to learn or to achieve academically, and during the programme, she had to adapt her active listening skills using hearing aids and her lipreading skills to engage and mentor the P5 pupils.

In 2018, Jenny undertook a student placement with the Community Engagement team within the Centre for Flexible Education at the Magee campus, becoming an integral part of the team and further developing a wide range of interactive media skills. Jenny took the lead on several projects including the media outputs for the 30^th Anniversary of the Science Shop exhibition with QUB, the Ulster Civic Ambassador programme and the Community Fellows initiative all of which launched the year of her placement.

On completion of her placement year Jenny accepted an internship with the Community Engagement team which has seen her continue to work on producing interactive media outputs two days a week during her final year at Ulster.

Jenny has used every opportunity to refine her skills and to embrace all the learning opportunities available to Ulster students. In support of her future career ambitions, Jenny also participated in a wide range of extra- curricular activities through successfully completing the Ulster EDGE Excel Award, 2020.

Jenny has also shown enduring commitment in combining her academic studies with her personal life, working at the family business which breeds Connemara ponies and she competes in horse riding events. Jenny was also a member of the winning Dressage team representing Ulster University at the National Equestrian Inter-Varsities hosted by Trinity College Dublin in March 2019.