Ronan Keohane, a third year World Languages student from Limerick studying at the College of Arts, Celtic Studies and Social Sciences, UCC (CACSSS), will receive the Global Citizen Award today at the UCC EmployAgility Award ceremony. 

The UCC EmployAgility Award is a professional skills development programme. It demonstrates that students have engaged in and developed professional skills through extra-curricular activities and work experience, which will help them stand out from the crowd when applying for graduate roles and internships. 

Some 200 students will be awarded for their dedication to voluntary activity on and off campus. They will receive formal recognition for developing key employability skills, graduate attributes, and core values. 

Originally from Limerick, Ronan came to UCC to study World Languages. Through the programme, he had the opportunity to study at the National University of Singapore (NUS), one of the world’s most prestigious and top-ranked universities. We spoke with Ronan recently to learn more about his education and work and what the UCC Employability Global Citizen Award means to him.

Ronan has a passion for languages and, as part of the World Languages programme, has studied modules in Korean, Mandarin, Spanish and Japanese. Next year in the final year of his course, he plans to graduate in Mandarin and Spanish with Chinese and Latin American area studies. He will continue his studies in Korean and Japanese independently.

Ronan has enjoyed being a student at the College of Arts, Celtic Studies and Social Sciences, UCC and has experienced lots of scope for self-development. He discovered that academic freedom in different modules of World Languages allows students to focus on topics they find interesting to write about, and he has discovered a passion for academic reading and writing.

Ronan acknowledges the support he has received from the staff at UCC. Last summer, his course director recommended enrolling in a three-week Politics, Philosophy and Economics programme at Lady Margaret Hall, a constituent college of the University of Oxford.

Ronan said: “I was so nervous when I started the summer programme, but I managed to get an A-grade, and I found a new passion for political philosophy and international relations. I would not have been able to accomplish these things without the different support systems within the College and the opportunities offered to me.”

For the past two semesters, Ronan has studied at NUS Singapore. He is studying various international relations modules along with advanced Mandarin and upper-intermediate Korean and Japanese. Along with having an engaging and enjoyable academic experience, Ronan has embraced extra-curricular activities at NUS. 

He said: “I am currently Director of Communications for Singapore Model United Nations, a member of the NUS Political Science Society and a member of NUS enablers which is an organisation striving to make the NUS campus more accessible for people with disabilities. I have been able to travel to different parts of east and south-east Asia and immerse myself in different cultures.”

Ronan will be in Singapore until May and will virtually attend the UCC EmployAgility Award ceremony today. This award means a lot to him; in fact, it is the highlight of his entire year. He has always been passionate about education, the environment and inclusivity, and his varied and hard work over the past few years reflects his keen interests at UCC and NUS.

During 2021-2022 Ronan worked as a PR officer for three different societies (International Relations, Failte Refugees and Korean) as well as regularly contributing to motley magazine, doing a weekly radio show segment called ‘A Global Outlook’ on UCC 98.3FM and drafting a research paper about political repression for a postgraduate journal. This year, while on exchange, Ronan worked as current-affairs-editor for motley, as a project manager for a summer camp in Spain for underprivileged youth with UCC support and on his recently published peer-reviewed academic article in Aigne Postgraduate Journal.

Ronan has had different and challenging experiences but recognises the privileges granted him in life. He said: “I want to try my best to pay my set of privileges forward to contribute towards the greater good by promoting education and kindness throughout my life.

‘The UCC EmployAgility award provides me official recognition by the university for my hard work, which already means a lot. It could help me in my university applications for masters’ programmes in the different top universities I wish to apply for and hopefully allow me to gain some power, ability and voice in enacting real change, which is in alignment with my principles on a much broader level.”

Congratulations to Ronan, a deserving recipient of the UCC EmployAgility, Global Citizen Award.