Tuition fee lifeline for Northumbria student

A Northumbria University student has secured a £25,000 tuition fee lifeline and a guaranteed job on completion of her degree.

Computing student Danielle Walsh will have her annual tuition fees paid by Gateshead-based electric vehicle component maker Sevcon under its innovative student bursary scheme.

Danielle is the first Northumbria University student to win a place on the Sevcon scheme. She will take up a software engineering post when she completes her studies.

Danielle, 20, is currently in the second year of BSc (Hons) Ethical Hacking for Computer Security at Northumbria University.

She said: “I was extremely overwhelmed and happy to hear I had made an impression at Sevcon and now I have a chance to work with an amazing company and develop my programming skills to an exceptional standard.

“The securing of my future both financially and as a valuable employee is truly wonderful and I will be eternally grateful to Sevcon.”

Matt Boyle, president and chief executive officer of Sevcon said: “Danielle is an exceptional student and is well-deserving of this award from Sevcon.

“We are constantly pushing the boundaries of technological innovation and need a supply of high-quality engineers to remain at the forefront of our industry. It’s a struggle to get the right quality people so we decided to grow our own.”

Danielle heard about the Sevcon bursary from her tutor who felt she had a good chance on the strength of her first-year results.

Gerhard Fehringer, enterprise director (computing and business information systems) at Northumbria added: “We are delighted that Sevcon has chosen to work with us on their student sponsorship scheme, and are proud that Danielle has secured this sponsorship.”