University degrees: Three in every 10 students award top grades

Anna Jonak from Portadown in County Armagh recently graduated from Queen’s University Belfast with a first-class degree in psychology.

She started her degree in 2020 at the height of the coronavirus pandemic and said the transition from daily in-person classes to fully remote learning was really challenging.

“Time management was really hard, from being in a classroom where the teacher goes through everything with you, to sitting at home and having everything online – I didn’t think I would do well,” she told BBC News NI.

Anna sat all her exams remotely apart from her final year.

“We initially had 24 hours to answer a question and it was all open-book, then for final year we were brought back in-person and under time constraints so that was really hard,” she said.

“When I found out I got a first I was so shocked, I was walking around for ages thinking ‘did that really happen’.

“The whole year I was really doubting myself as my marks were always straddling a 2:1 or first.”

“I don’t think firsts are just handed out.

“Yes, our initial exams were remote and open-book but that was taken into consideration during the marking.”