Stephen McKean from Ballymagorry, Co Tyrone is a second year student on the National Diploma in Land-based Technology course at Greenmount Campus. He is presently on work experience.

“I have always loved working with machinery on my home farm and I was really excited to get an offer to study a machinery related programme at Greenmount.  One of the things that attracted me most of all to the course was the work experience element and I have now almost completed five months with Cowan Bros in Eglinton where I work in the repair workshop.  I’m really enjoying the new challenges set each day.  Working at Cowans has given me the chance to work with a big range of machines. It’s great to be able to put into practice the knowledge and skills that I learned in my first year at Greenmount and I now have much more confidence in my own abilities.

Work experience has given me a taste of what might lie ahead for me after I complete my National Diploma.  I’m surprised at how much I am actually enjoying it, - mind you, having a good pay cheque at the end of each week also helps!  My supervisor at Cowans has told me that he is very happy with my attitude and the quality of my work so I might have a good chance if a job comes up there in the future.

I am now looking forward to returning to Greenmount in December to complete the National Diploma course and the NVQ Level 2 Agricultural Machinery Repair course at the same time.

I was also really pleased recently to receive an iPod from Greenmount.  If you introduced a friend to Greenmount you were put into a draw for a prize.  I told Laurie Smyth, a neighbour from home.  He is now studying the National Certificate in Agriculture course and I won the draw so we both got iPods!. Cool or what!”

Stephen McKean working on a New Holland TM140 during his work experience at Cowan Bros in Eglinton

Stephen McKean and Laurie Smyth receiving iPods from Greenmount Senior Lecturer Kenneth Johnston