The inaugural Dyson Institute graduation
Four years after the Dyson Institute of Engineering and Technology was established, this weekend it celebrated the graduation of its first cohort of undergraduates.
The first-year group of 33 students graduated on Saturday in a ceremony on Dyson’s Campus in Hullavington Airfield. They all achieved a BEng Degree Apprenticeship in Engineering, awarded by the University of Warwick, and have all chosen to accept full time roles at Dyson.
The Dyson Institute’s Undergraduate Engineers pay zero tuition fees and earn a full salary. As well as their degree studies, they work on real-life projects alongside world experts in Dyson’s global engineering, research and technology teams. From day one they contribute to new technologies to improve lives all around the world. It is more than a job, and more than a degree.
Over their four years at Dyson the Undergraduate Engineers have collectively worked in 42 different teams, being supported by 88 Line Managers gaining practical engineering experience while working on 17 different released Dyson machines.
Our first cohort of undergraduates were pioneering and brave to put their trust in Dyson for their degree, but by any standards their finals results are extraordinary. I am so thrilled that they are all choosing to stay at Dyson following their studies, to be part of the team developing the technologies and products that will be our future. At my ripe old age, I should be able to pass on some advice. But I’m stumped. The world is moving so fast, tomorrow is so different from today. Experience is not necessarily the help it used to be, problems need to be approached differently and this gives YOU an unprecedented advantage. Be bold, be radical. The world needs radicals.
The students were joined by their families and James Dyson along with Jake Dyson and members of the Dyson Institute Council including Jo Johnson, former Minister for Universities, and Mary Curnock Cook OBE. It was in a meeting with Jo Johnson in 2016 that James Dyson decided to establish the Dyson Institute. In a speech to the students James Dyson paid tribute to the graduating students, calling them all pioneers for embarking on such and different route of higher education and thanked them and their families for putting their trust in the fledging project that is now well on its way to becoming an university.
