Computing graduate is best in Britain

Representatives from Intel celebrate with BU's Sherry Jeary (second left) and prize-winning graduate Helen Paget (second right).

Enterprising graduate tops the list in IT & Computing for British Graduate 100 Award.

BU graduate Helen Paget has won this year’s British Graduate 100 Award for IT & Computing. Helen, from Bournemouth, recently completed her BSc (Hons) in Computing, earning first class honours.

"I was so surprised to win the award,” said Helen, a young mother with two small children. “All the nominees had made such wonderful achievements; it must have been a very hard decision for the judges.

"The whole event was amazing,” she continued. “There were representatives from many very prestigious companies, such as Google, Goldman Sachs, Intel and GlaxoSmithKline to name just a few. It is such an innovative way to bring Britain's top students and top employers together in a time when the financial climate is making finding the right graduate career very challenging.

“I am very grateful for the support of the lecturers and staff on the Computing course and for the patience and understanding of my family,” Helen concluded. “The standard of the University course was amazing; I would never have imagined that in four years I could go from not knowing the first thing about programming to being able to design, code and sell a system to an international company.”

Sherry Jeary, Director of BU’s Software Systems Research Centre based in the School of Design, Engineering and Computing, made the nomination based on the consistently high standard Helen achieved throughout her degree. Sherry also highlighted the entrepreneurial skills Helen has displayed in turning her final year project into a potential enterprise activity.

“Helen is an excellent student whose work is exemplary,” said Sherry. “In fact, she will graduate in November with the highest mark ever for any of the 14 degrees that make up the University’s framework of computing courses. This is all the more remarkable because she is a young mother with all the responsibilities that this entails.

“Helen’s final year project is particularly noteworthy,” Sherry continued. “She has displayed enterprise above and beyond the average student by taking visual project management techniques she had seen in a book and creating an outline web system from them.

“Helen then pitched the prospective system to the book’s author who was delighted with her work,” Sherry continued, “and she is now working on this system for the author as the project continues.”

Helen joined fellow BU graduate Isaac Parham at the gala awards dinner in London. Isaac was nominated on the strength of his success on the BA (Hons) in Scriptwriting as part of the Media & Publishing category.

Over 13,000 graduates and 70 universities nationwide entered this year’s British Graduate 100 Awards which celebrated the skills and achievements of Britain’s outstanding recent graduates and their universities.