Students celebrate an top marks success

Two of them, Stacey Falconer (who came first overall) and Gary Watson (who came second), who are both 18 and who have both gone on to follow computer courses at the University of Ulster at Coleraine, returned to Lisneal on Monday to celebrate their success with staff. The third student, Lee Campbell, is currently on a 'gap year'.

All three spent two years studying 'Double Award ICT', or information computer technology, before sitting the final exams, and along the way they also had coursework to produce in order to 'make the grade'.

"In the first year there were six modules, five pieces of coursework and one exam, and in the second year there was four pieces of coursework and two exams," recalled Gary.

Tracey admitted that some of the modules were "tough going", but she felt the coursework was easier than some of the exam work, and also took some of the pressure off when it came to sitting the exams themselves.

"After I get my degree in computing I want to go on and do a PGCE and hopefully teach computing in a secondary school," said Tracey.

However, Gary has other ideas: "I originally thought I wanted to do the same as Tracey, but now I think I want to do a Masters in web design and then maybe become a web developer designing websites for companies, because doing the modules in the two years here at Lisneal I really liked it the most."

For now though, their heads are full of web design data, technology, computer languages like Java and html, and other binary finery that will lead them to getting their first letters after their names.

For now though it's a case of back to the books and burning the midnight oil as the students slog their way though more schooling in their continuing quest to get to the top.