B.I.S College course...Help

Fol20

Ok just finished my lc and it went fine for me i should get the points i need for BIS if i want it..Iv heard its meant to be very difficult with a lot of drop outs in the first year,is this true?.Whats the course like and what do u do exactly in this course?Is it very kinda 'computer programming' intensive if you know what i mean?How is work life/jobs after you get the college degree?Is the work placement good in third year and is it easy to go to USA for the work experience if i did get that course?Has anyone used this degree to work permanently in USA as that is something that interests me.Any help would be great as im freaking out at the moment with only a few days left for the cao deadline.

hybie

Okay, well first off, I didn't do BIS but I did do computer science. CS is much more computer programming intensive but a lot of the stuff you're taught are old languages. BIS does do a good bit of programming but it doesn't overload you on it and it also gives you a business background which is definitely something that will stand to you in the long run.

I did a work placement too in my course and it is of great benefit; I even got offered a full time job out of it. From what I know bout 85% of students in BIS go to the states in third year...basically if you want a placement there you will get one...not too sure bout full time though cause there's a lot of bother bout visa's etc.

I can't obviously tell you what to do, but a good few of my friends have done BIS and done the masters in it and they enjoyed it and all got good and different jobs out of it. Hope this helps...best of luck with it!

Fol20

thanks for the advice..id say im gonna go ahead with it

cheater

I'm currently doing BIS, it's a really good course, it has (or so they tell us anyway) the highest graduate to job ration in UCC. It's also a really personal course you get to know more or less your whole class if you attend the coffee mornings which are run by the heads of BIS.

On the academic side of things, I would advise you have an interest in computers, designing web sites, programmes etc. because these are big parts of the course, but being honest if you can work a computer fairly competently you will develop an interest throughout the year.

On the other side of the academics, you have Accounting (both Management and Financial), Economics, Pyschology etc. Having done Accounting is a help but not essential, if you make a good stab at attending a decent number of lectures and/or visit the accounting support centre you'll be fine.

All in all, it's a pretty great course, lots of hours in 1st year but it gets better and better after that, also on the jobs front, usually the company with whom you get 6 month placement in 3rd year, providing you get on well at the company, offer you a full time job once you finish.

Anyways, I really like the course, the drop out thing is generally from people who haven't a notion about computers etc. Once you do a bit of study for your class tests and put an effort into your projects on the computers you'll be fine!

Hope this helped a little!

Fol20

Is accounting a major part of BIS or is it only part of the business side...i only did economics for the lc and didnt do accounting...

titan18

I'm hoping to do it aswell

1huge1

cheater wrote: »

I'm currently doing BIS, it's a really good course, it has (or so they tell us anyway) the highest graduate to job ration in UCC. It's also a really personal course you get to know more or less your whole class if you attend the coffee mornings which are run by the heads of BIS.

On the academic side of things, I would advise you have an interest in computers, designing web sites, programmes etc. because these are big parts of the course, but being honest if you can work a computer fairly competently you will develop an interest throughout the year.

On the other side of the academics, you have Accounting (both Management and Financial), Economics, Pyschology etc. Having done Accounting is a help but not essential, if you make a good stab at attending a decent number of lectures and/or visit the accounting support centre you'll be fine.

All in all, it's a pretty great course, lots of hours in 1st year but it gets better and better after that, also on the jobs front, usually the company with whom you get 6 month placement in 3rd year, providing you get on well at the company, offer you a full time job once you finish.

Anyways, I really like the course, the drop out thing is generally from people who haven't a notion about computers etc. Once you do a bit of study for your class tests and put an effort into your projects on the computers you'll be fine!

Hope this helped a little!

Do the commerce students ever have the same classes as bis students?, im hoping to do commerce with chinese but love computers

Fol20

just out of interest are you starting from scratch in your Chinese studies.

1huge1

Fol20 wrote: »

just out of interest are you starting from scratch in your Chinese studies.

Ya according to the course overviews the expect you to go into the course with no chinese at all like.

cheater

Hey, sorry about the delay in replying to this thread!

You asked about accounting and does it play a major part in the course or just the business side of things.. well you won't have to do accounts out on computers etc. so I guess it's only on the business side of things.

There are 2 accounting modules, financial accounting and management accounting, both are worth 5 credits each, out of the whole 60 credits the course is made up of, in order to pass the year you must pass 50 credits worth of modules and then get over 30% in the remaining 10 credits in order to compensate. Ideally though you probably want to just pass the year without compensating but it's all the one.

In my case this year, I never did accounting for the leaving and I found accounting quite tough but being honest I rarely attended accounting lectures or support centres etc. until it was too late, i.e. a week or two before exams, and I managed to compensate for both Financial and Management. With a bit of work you'd fly it!

Having done economics is a great help, the way in which economics is taught in college is quite difficult I thought, but then again I cam from having a superb economics teacher in second level! My advice would be keep all your notes on supply & demand, elasticity etc. etc. They'll be a help to you!

jamieh

Hi all,

I just finished BIS this year.

If anyone has any questions feel free to pm me or sumthing

dotsman

Graduated 4 years ago!

As long as you have an interest in IT (and if you did a business subject for the LC and liked it) you should be fine. It's not too technical, but at the same time goes into enough detail on the development side to allow you go into that career (like me). There's basically 3 areas in BIS and you begin to specialise in final year (where there are a lot of subjects to choose from). At the core, there is analysis and design. This is the main selling point of the course and is a very good area to get into. About half my year went went for jobs (ie IT Consultancy/Analysts etc) in this area (and I am now doing!). About a third ended up in Acounting (in my year, more BIS grads had accouting jobs secured before they graduated than the Accounting grads!). Most of the rest end up in more development roles.

As for third year. Best 6 months of your life! not sure what the situation is like now, but about 70% went to the States, 15% to London and the rest stayed in Cork/Dublin. Of those who went to the states, about a third to a half got full time positions (mainly with Fidelity Investments who are a huge fan of the course and soak up a lot of the class every year). Most people had jobs secured before graduating and of those that didn't, were doing a Masters or travelling for a year etc. The starting salary is one of the best you can get.

As regards dropping out/failing, thorughout the 4 years no one from my class (about 115 people) had to repeat a year, and only a few dropped out in first year (mainly due to changing their minds as to what course they wanted). Though in my time, the points to get in were 500+, whereas I've heard they are much lower now, so someone going in with only 350 etc might have difficulty, but that's only a general rule (ie someone with 350 points who's really interested in the course will do better than someone with 500 who's only "passing through" and only doing the course for the sake of it (promise of great career/money etc)).

As for jobs afterwards, the vast majority of people end up working for the top financials (Fidelity, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, AIB etc) or top consultancy firms (PWC, Accenture, Deloitte etc)