The challenge from within

Along with hundreds of successful students at University College Cork, Rachael Burke pulled on her gown, polished her shoes and collected her degree at a recent graduation ceremony.

After passing her finals in food process engineering, she is now looking forward to a short holiday and a future job in industry. However, for Burke the graduation was extra special and marked what she hopes is a watershed in her life. "Two years into my degree my mother died and I began to suffer from depression and mental-health problems," says Burke. "I couldn't concentrate on my work and was feeling paranoid. It got steadily worse and I started saying and doing strange things. "I would go into college totally wrapped up in my own world and feeling really paranoid."

Burke was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1996 but was determined to continue at college. "I'd fought so hard to get into Cork in the first place I just had to keep at it and try and pass." The disability support service at UCC organised arrangements to help Burke. They wrote to all her lecturers explaining her situation and arranged for photocopies of notes for any lecture that she missed. During her exams, she was given breaks to help her concentrate and extra time if she needed it. "The staff at UCC were very good. Lecturers would provide me with books and make sure I had anything that I needed. Some students were also very supportive. There were only 20 people in my class and they encouraged me to stick with it." Nonetheless, a stigma still surrounds mental-health issues in Ireland. During her time at college, Rachael Burke encountered several instances of prejudice.

"When I was in college one student used to tap his head when he was looking at me, saying I was mad," she explains. She also experienced some difficulty with flatmates. "There's really a lot of misunderstanding about psychiatric and psychological problems. People believe if you are schizophrenic then you are going to be aggressive, but that's just not necessarily true."

Burke had a breakdown in her third year at college and deferred her degree for a year to give her a break from studying. "Coming back for my final year was toughest. Up until Christmas I found it very difficult and my mental health deteriorated and I had another breakdown. I was eventually committed to a psychiatric hospital for a few months earlier this year," she says. "Since then I have been on medication and have felt a lot better."

Despite missing the whole of the second term, she came back and resat her exams and passed.

"I'm really ambitious and I'm just so glad to get a degree because now I have much more chance of getting a job." The director of Schizophrenia Ireland, Orla O'Neill, says Rachael Burke is a good role model for people with mental illness. "It's a great achievement because Rachael developed the illness while at university and it's no mean feat to get through the stress of examinations, which can often trigger schizophrenia," O'Neill says.

"While there would be a large percentage of people with schizophrenia who have degrees, it wouldn't be uncommon for people to break down at college.

"We're currently working with disability officers at colleges around the country to raise awareness in the field. Basically, people with schizophrenia need flexibility to enable them to succeed in college."