Our first tour of the day was at Queen's University. The building looked sophisticated. Now that I visited the place, I looked into some facts about it. Queen's University is the ninth oldest university in the UK, and it is among the top one percent of global universities and one of the top 30 UK universities as rated in the Sunday Times Good University Guide. It is one of the largest employers in Belfast with over 3,500 staff and has over 1,400 international students who are from 100 countries; the university also has over 150,000 alumni in more than 120 countries. Each year, Queen's University contributes over 700 million pounds to the Northern Ireland economy! It has more than 250 buildings.
When I researched about it yesterday, I found out that this university is a non-denominational school that taught both Protestants and Catholics, which was interesting to find out about. During the tour, Kevie pointed her finger at the ceiling, and we saw a red hand image, which symbolizes Ulster. I wondered, ‘Why would they only put the Ulster symbol but not the Irish symbol when they say it's a non-denominational university?’ The other big window had both Ulster and Irish symbols, but the ceiling just made me ponder a little bit. Maybe they forgot to put the Irish one? Maybe they have a ceiling with just Irish symbol embedded in another building that we didn't go to?
According to a news article, Dr. Peter Shirlow, an academic from Queen’s University Belfast, said the percentage of Catholics and Protestants attending our universities reflected “the share of what the population is”. The religious breakdown of the age group between 18-21 of people attending university is 55% Catholic and 45% Protestant. Figures obtained by the Belfast Telegraph show that of Northern Ireland students attending university, 35% are Protestants, 49% are Catholics and 16% are others. However, according to the census, Protestants are more likely not to reveal their religion than Catholics so we have to be aware of the fact that the percentage of Protestants that's known might be lower than what it should be.
http://www.qub.ie/home/TheUniversity/AboutQueens/FactsandFigures/ http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/education/51-of-northern-ireland-school-pupils-are-catholic-28671003.html
When I researched about it yesterday, I found out that this university is a non-denominational school that taught both Protestants and Catholics, which was interesting to find out about. During the tour, Kevie pointed her finger at the ceiling, and we saw a red hand image, which symbolizes Ulster. I wondered, ‘Why would they only put the Ulster symbol but not the Irish symbol when they say it's a non-denominational university?’ The other big window had both Ulster and Irish symbols, but the ceiling just made me ponder a little bit. Maybe they forgot to put the Irish one? Maybe they have a ceiling with just Irish symbol embedded in another building that we didn't go to?
According to a news article, Dr. Peter Shirlow, an academic from Queen’s University Belfast, said the percentage of Catholics and Protestants attending our universities reflected “the share of what the population is”. The religious breakdown of the age group between 18-21 of people attending university is 55% Catholic and 45% Protestant. Figures obtained by the Belfast Telegraph show that of Northern Ireland students attending university, 35% are Protestants, 49% are Catholics and 16% are others. However, according to the census, Protestants are more likely not to reveal their religion than Catholics so we have to be aware of the fact that the percentage of Protestants that's known might be lower than what it should be.
http://www.qub.ie/home/TheUniversity/AboutQueens/FactsandFigures/ http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/education/51-of-northern-ireland-school-pupils-are-catholic-28671003.html