Education

Profile: Méabh Hourigan, B.Eng Renewable & Electrical Energy Engineering

Hourigan is studying at Technological University of the Shannon a university with over 15,000 students

Méabh Hourigan is studying B.Eng Renewable & Electrical Energy Engineering

Peter McGuire
Tue Apr 30 2024 - 02:10

I went to an all-girls secondary school. We didn’t have access to engineering subjects, but I always knew that I wanted to go to TUS as they offered an electrical engineering course.

I’m now in my fourth and final year of a course that is very practically oriented, with hands-on learning and, crucially, smaller class sizes.

Those smaller class sizes at the technological universities are a bonus: there are never more than 60 in any one class. Our lecturers are very accommodating, and they knew us all whereas, in a larger university with hundreds in a lecture theatre, they wouldn’t.

For the last four years, we have learned about renewable energy, wind farms, solar farms and biomass, as well as automation engineering, coding and visuals.

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I did a placement in my third year with H&MV, an electrical company in Limerick. This placement helped me to understand the space between theory and work and has been invaluable. Now, my final-year project is focused on using industry-relevant softwares to design solar farms and their electrical connection, which will help Ireland to reach our sustainability goals and energy targets, and I’m working with H&MV for it.

H&MV are actually sponsoring my final year in college, and I am using their software to carry out the project – and they have offered me a job for next year, after I finish this course and spend my summer on a J1.

I am looking forward to getting more experience in this area where there is a lot of growth and opportunities.

I am from Tipperary, and it’s only a 40-minute drive from the Limerick campus. It was LIT when I started, but when it became part of a technological university, it gave me the benefit of a university degree, which is perhaps a little more recognisable internationally than an institute of technology qualification.

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