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Isabelle Bourassa divided her time growing up between Ottawa, Canada, and Norfolk, UK, and all it took was a quick internet search to convince her that an Engineering degree at Harper Adams was the right choice for her.

“I decided to study at Harper Adams partly because I wanted somewhere where I would be a person and not just a number like you are at some of the bigger institutions. 

“I was at a city-based university for a term before I came here, and my meetings with my personal tutor were akin to ‘you’re still alive and breathing, great off you go and I’ll tick this box for student records to say I’ve seen you’. My experience at Harper has been the complete opposite.”

Isabelle is now in her fourth and final year of her studies and cannot recommend her degree enough. 

“Harper turns people who are not necessarily technically academic, into top engineering graduates and I think probably better than those students from the top academic universities.

“For example, for our group engineering project this year, my team and I entered an international engineering competition called the Efficiency For Access Design Challenge and we got to meet other teams from different higher education providers. 

“We engaged with all of the other participants and shared ideas…The universities came from all over the world and what really stuck with us was that we were the only team who had any real experience of doing projects similar to those expected of an employed engineer. 

As well as loving the industrial opportunities her course has presented her with, Isabelle also credits our Engineering staff and Harper’s rural location in aiding her enjoyment of the degree.

“The lecturers are fantastic…I think what we have at Harper is really special, particularly the level of industry experience which I don’t think you’ll find anywhere else.

“The department has a particular mission and that is wanting everyone to leave as a confident, competent, “industry-ready” engineer and I genuinely think they are really succeeding at this. No other university can rival Harper in this regard in my opinion.”

“I went to school in York and loved the idea of continuing to study in a rural setting and I loved that Harper offered just that. Plus, Newport is an historic town, with a lot on offer and I don’t think many people appreciate it as much they should.”

If Isabelle could sum up her four years here at Harper Adams, she would say: “A pretty happy time where I have grown in different ways.

After finishing her studies Isabelle is hoping to undertake a postgraduate qualification.