Student athlete Conor had success both inside and outside the classroom while completing Agriculture at South East Technological University
Conor Hennessy of Kilkenny plays for the Kilkenny County hurling team and is a recent graduate of the BSc (Hons) in Land Management in Agriculture course
Q. How was the course for you?
A. Good I enjoyed it over the course of the four years, I wasn’t sure if I was going to do the fourth year until the first three went so well, so then I decided to continue on. The thesis was the biggest step up doing the land management course, a lot of hours went into that.
Q. Was there a lot of hours done outside of a classroom?
A. Yeah definitely doing the trials at home on the farms and in the labs. I spent about 20 hours in the labs.
Q. Where did you go on work placement?
A. Clara in Kilkenny, a company called Prendergast which was a great experience and I learned a good bit there.
Q. You play hurling for Kilkenny?
A. Yeah and with SETU while I was here. I won an All-Ireland and two Leinster titles and under-21 we won two Leinster titles and lost in an All-Ireland final but didn’t have much success with SETU.
Q. Why did you choose your course in Waterford?
A. I started in Kildalton and transferred to SETU. I always wanted to farm at home but my father didn’t want me to do that yet so pushed me to do the course and I’m delighted I done it.
Q. What advice would you give to someone who wants to come to Waterford?
A. Definitely live down here if you can and in regards to the workload and thesis get started as early as possible and don’t be putting too much pressure on yourself, there is a good bit of work in it so get your assignments out of the way to give you time to study for the exams.
Q. How do you feel about graduating today?
A. Great, I’m glad to have it done, I suppose I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself now I’m just back from a J1 in America for this so I suppose I will try to head back out there.
Interviewed at Conferring 2019 by Áine Byrne