Gillian Thomson from Dumfriesshire in Scotland has just completed her first year of the National Diploma in Agriculture (NDA) course at Greenmount Campus.  

Gillian writes:-

“I don’t come from a farm but I worked on a friend’s farm for years and over time I developed a real love for farming and decided I wanted to make a career in agriculture.  I heard good reports about Greenmount in Northern Ireland and decided to apply for the NDA course there.  I was delighted to be accepted and I have loved the last year spent at the College.  Everyone has been very helpful and I have made some very good friends.  I would say coming to Greenmount was the best decision I have made so far.

The farms I worked on in Scotland kept beef and sheep.  Working with the sheep was my favourite job.  Obviously I was not able to go home at the weekends like most students so I spent my weekends working on the farm at Greenmount.  This usually involved working with the dairy herd, milking and so on.  I became really interested in dairy cows and enjoyed working on the farm so I applied for a temporary summer job at Greenmount and was successful.  The job involves working with the high yielding CREAM herd and general work around the farm.  I did go home during the holidays at Christmas and at Easter.  I spent some of my Easter holidays lambing sheep on my friends farm.

Next year will be my year on work experience.  I am going to AFBI, Hillsborough.  I will be working in the dairy unit and I expect to gain a lot more knowledge of dairy farming while I’m there.  Once I’ve completed my NDA course I am hoping to progress to a Higher National Diploma course at Greenmount, naturally.  After that perhaps a job or maybe even a degree course, I’ll have to wait and see what happens!”

Gillian Thomson at her favourite job – working with sheep.