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Courses
Courses
Choosing a course is one of the most important decisions you'll ever make! View our courses and see what our students and lecturers have to say about the courses you are interested in at the links below.
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University Life
University Life
Each year more than 4,000 choose NUI Galway as their University of choice. Find out what life at NUI Galway is all about here.
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About NUI Galway
About NUI Galway
Since 1845, NUI Galway has been sharing the highest quality teaching and research with Ireland and the world. Find out what makes our University so special – from our distinguished history to the latest news and campus developments.
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Colleges & Schools
Colleges & Schools
NUI Galway has earned international recognition as a research-led university with a commitment to top quality teaching across a range of key areas of expertise.
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Research & Innovation
Research & Innovation
NUI Galway’s vibrant research community take on some of the most pressing challenges of our times.
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Business & Industry
Guiding Breakthrough Research at NUI Galway
We explore and facilitate commercial opportunities for the research community at NUI Galway, as well as facilitating industry partnership.
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Alumni, Friends & Supporters
Alumni, Friends & Supporters
There are over 90,000 NUI Galway graduates Worldwide, connect with us and tap into the online community.
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Community Engagement
Community Engagement
At NUI Galway, we believe that the best learning takes place when you apply what you learn in a real world context. That's why many of our courses include work placements or community projects.
Reading and Research Skills
We are all researchers! Booking a bus journey or flight, choosing a university course, trying to find the perfect coffee or ice-cream cone – these are all examples of research in everyday life.
Research skills refer to the ability to search for, locate, extract, organise, evaluate and use or present information that is relevant to a particular topic. Academic research is a specific type of research: a process of detailed and methodical investigation into some area of study. It involves intensive search, investigation, and critical analysis, usually in response to a specific research question or hypothesis. It also usually involves a lot of reading.
Here are some examples of research questions:
- What are the costs and benefits of water charges?
- Does smoking cause lung cancer?
- Are gender roles a product of nature or nurture?
- Will genetic engineering ever make it possible for humans to grow new organs?
The point of all academic research is to be able to say something with authority about the subject in question. Most of your lecturers are also researchers who specialise in particular fields. Advanced academic research aims to contribute something new to the subject area, but at undergraduate level, you are usually expected to begin by researching other people’s ideas and contributions, mostly through reading.
Click on the boxes below to find out more about reading and research at university.
Supported by the NUI Galway Student Project Fund