A FORMER Okehampton College student has proven his academic chops by being named top student at Harper Adams University in Shropshire.

Having passed through Exbourne Primary and Shebbear College‘s junior school, Chris Pyle left Okehampton College with three As at A-Level and was persuaded by his product design teacher to go to university.

Chris had a GCSE foundation in maths but to get accepted on an engineering course individuals are normally expected to have an A-Level in the subject or in physics.

After extra maths tuition and getting good results Chris was able to upgrade from a bachelor of science course to a bachelor of engineering course in agricultural engineering at Harper Adams University in Telford.

At the end of his second year, he was awarded a scholarship to JCB for his placement year. He was one of only 25 people to receive such a scholarship out of over 500 applicants.

The scholarship included a bursary for his second and fourth year university fees, employment for his placement year and a potential job offer at the end of his degree.

Chris was one of only four people to achieve a first in the BEng Agricultural Engineering and for his determination and hard work, the university awarded him with the New Holland Trophy for being the top student on the course.

Chris was presented with a cup and £500 prize at his graduation ceremony last week.

Chris said: ‘Looking back four or five years from now I would never have imagined getting a degree, let alone achieving what I have. I originally never even considered going to university.

‘Okehampton College had put on various functions to encourage higher education but at the time I didn’t want to spend any more time in a classroom if I didn’t have to! I also never thought I was capable of degree level education.

‘During my degree I began to appreciate more and more the technology department at Okehampton College. There were a lot of things that I had learned from having done systems and control, resistant materials and product design that came in useful at university. These subjects gave me a great advantage throughout my degree.’

Chris has now accepted a global position with JCB in Staffordshire as an agricultural product engineer.

l Chris Pyle is pictured left holding his New Holland Trophy with New Holland Agriculture marketing manager James Ashworth.