82 year Old Graduates from WIT
As the second day of conferring ceremonies takes place at Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT) on Thursday, 82-year-old Tom Boyle graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in English and Irish.
Boyle, who is possibly Ireland’s oldest full-time undergraduate student, turned 82 last week, and was joined at the 10am ceremony on Thursday 31 October 2019 by his wife Phyllis and their seven children.
While studying in Waterford city he travelled to college each day from Ramsgrange, Co Wexford. Boyle, who started his studies at WIT initially as a Law student made the move to Arts. He has previously said that his only regret is he didn’t return to college sooner. Returning to education is something that he wishes he had done 10 or 20 years ago.
Boyle shot to fame in 2016 when a video of his classmates singing happy birthday to him as he turned 79 went viral.
Between Wednesday 30 October and Friday, 1 November 2019, 12 conferring ceremonies take place on WIT’s College Street Campus.
Eleven ceremonies take place across the three days during which 2,457 graduates will be conferred with academic awards up to doctorate level. A conferring ceremony for some shorter courses with less than 60 credits takes place on the evening of Wednesday, 30 October 2019, bringing the total to 2,675 graduates for 2019.
