McColgan's worker Joanna says NWRC was special ingredient to career

Joanna Peplinska is now a Continuous Improvement Facilitator at McColgan's Quality Foods in Strabane, which specialises in the manufacture of savoury pastry products.

Originally from Poland, and now living in Ballymagorry, Joanna first attended NWRC when she studied the Access Diploma in Combined Studies at Strand Road.

The Access course is for adult learners who want to study Higher Education courses (Uni Level) providing them with a qualification that is the equivalent to 3 A-levels.

She then studied the Foundation Degree in Applied and Medical Science at NWRC.

Joanna said: “When I arrived here from Poland I had the equivalent of Polish GCSEs. I was able to enrol as an Access student and within 4 1/2 years I had my qualifications.

“I had so much support from the lecturers at NWRC who happily stayed with me after class to go through assignments if there was anything I needed extra help with.

“The great thing was to be able to study locally, the location of the college was so good and I loved coming into Derry.

“The course is designed well for people like me because I was able to work and study at the same time.

“I also was able to get paid work placement and spent the summer working in the North West Covid Centre – that was brilliant experience working with swabs, data, preparing samples and tracking results."

Now happily settled into a career in the Food Manufacturing Joanne enjoys working at McColgan’s.

“My Foundation degree was the key ingredient to get a post on the quality team,” she said.

“Studying science opened a lot of doors for me and gave me a lot of opportunities. After my graduation I began working at McColgan’s and I am now a Continuous Improvement Facilitator.

“I would highly recommend the college to everyone,” she said. “It is a great way to go back to education. When I first came here my English was quite limited and being at NWRC really helped my language skills.”

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89% of North West Regional College leavers were in employment or education six months after graduation