I am a third year student in Waterford Institute of Technology. I am aiming to achieve a BA Honours in Health Promotion at the end of the four year course. WIT is one of the few colleges in Ireland who provide this course. When deciding what course to do, I attended a talk in WIT about what health promotion is about. After that talk I had no doubt this is the area I wanted to study and the career path I hoped to follow.
Waterford Institute of Technology is a university-level institution in Ireland. The IT facilitates over 10,000 students and employs over 1,000 staff. The institute is made up of five campuses all together. The main campus is situated on the outskirts of the city. It is a very modern-style campus with state of the art buildings. In this campus my course takes place. I believe this is an advantage as the main college library is situated here. This building can accommodate 1,000 students and staff over its three floors. Despite the exceptional size of the building and the level of facilities it provides, at times it cannot cope with the numbers of students. Coming up to exams, I have experienced walking around the study areas on all three floors and being unable to find a seat or any space to set down a book. The demand for this library is amazing. In my opinion, it is the best element of WIT as not many other IT facilities would have anything up to this standard. Access to the library is not easy. In order to enter one must scan their WIT student or membership card. Entry is not permitted without proof of membership.
Health promotion is primarily about enabling people to control their own health by adopting a healthy lifestyle. It is a part of primary health care concentrating on prevention and early detection of illness and disease. This can be done through direct work with individuals or with their environment. It is a moderately new area of work in Ireland as the health services here focus on secondary care. I am very interested in learning about health in general. However, studying health promotion has opened my eyes to many health issues where prevention is vital. Therefore, I now see health promotion as the most important area of health care and an area I am becoming captivated in.
From doing the course the past two years it has made me realise how health promotion has been a factor in my education to date. I went to Lisselton National School. While I was in this school health schemes were introduced which affected my own lifestyle and the whole community. The healthy eating programme was one thing which I think was very important. This allowed all children in the school to take on a healthy diet from a young age. As well as this, the school took part in the Happy Heart Skipathon every year. This got us involved in physical activity and encouraged us to take up this type of exercise. I believe this was very effective and beneficial to me.
This health promotion continued into my secondary education. I went to Tarbert Comprehensive School for six years. During these years, health promotion was taught to us in SHPE class (Social, Personal, and Health Education). This subject was taught from first year until Transition Year. Health promotion was also integrated into physical education by encouraging adolescents to become more involved in sport and exercise.
The next stage of my course is work placement. I will be working in Waterford Health Park for one semester. During this time I hope to introduce more health promotion programmes and education about the subject into both primary and secondary schools. I believe that introducing this in schools is vital for change, as children are the future.