A Maynooth Education - What's Changing

    We have comprehensively redesigned our undergraduate education, building on its existing strengths while introducing promising new features and much greater flexibility.
    The aim:  To better prepare students for the many opportunities and challenges they will encounter throughout their lives and in their places of work.

    • We are changing the way we teach and assess across all subject areas, so that in addition to learning core knowledge and skills, we challenge students to analyse, reflect, think critically and communicate clearly.
    • We are introducing a radically different approach to first year, with greater choice and additional small-group learning to support students through the transition to university learning, and to reinforce the development of the core skills they will need to succeed in university and beyond.
    • We are breaking down the barriers between disciplines, allowing students the flexibility to combine different subjects in innovative ways.
    • We are greatly expanding the opportunities to combine subjects across the arts and sciences, knowing that the challenges of the future require such broad perspectives.
    • We are developing exciting new elective courses that encourage students to broaden their perspective, develop additional skills, or explore multidisciplinary approaches to important questions and problems.
    • We are prioritising engagement with modern languages, providing all students with the opportunity to study a language as part of their degree.
    • We are emphasising thinking and working skills that employers value, priming graduates to contribute effectively to the modern workplace.
    • We are providing a much greater range of learning experiences outside the classroom, including work placement, volunteering, student leadership and study abroad, helping students develop skills for their careers and build the confidence and leadership to get things done.
    • We are empowering students to become active partners in designing their learning programme, so that they engage with their learning in a meaningful and, ultimately more satisfying way.

    And we are greatly reducing the number of different entry routes to our undergraduate programmes, making it easier to apply to the university and allowing students to specialise in a way that suits their talents and goals.