Graduate Diploma in Information Technology

SoupyNorman

Hi,

I'd much appreciate anybodies experiences/opinions on this course. I've just stumbled onto it today and it's a perfect course for what I am looking but there is only a few days left to apply!


Thanks.

2Poc

Full time or part time? I just finished the part time course this year.

Not bad, good all round course but to make the most of the course you'd really have to be developing your own programming skills on the side as altough Java is covered its pretty basic & the development methods very old fashioned.

Have you any questions in particular?

SoupyNorman

2Poc wrote: »

Full time or part time? I just finished the part time course this year. Not bad, good all round course but to make the most of the course you'd really have to be developing your own programming skills on the side as altough Java is covered its pretty basic & the development methods very old fashioned. Have you any questions in particular?

I’d be doing it Part-time also. Well I’m a business graduate looking to get my foot in the programming door, for cost/location and course content
It seems to have all the elements I’m looking for. I did Relational databases and SQL in my final year in college and I’ve worked in a 2nd level position
For the last 2 years. I’m very IT orientated however I need those building blocks of programming to get me going. I see many jobs I’d like to apply for but requirements are always SQL plus other languages!

How did you find the spread between CA and exams, most subjects seem to be 50/50 which I like, how did you find it?

When were the classes, website says ‘usually’ 6:30-9:30 pm Tues and Thurs?


Sorry for the barrage but I want to capitalize on your knowledge!!

2Poc

If you are already interested in programming it'll certainly be enough to get you going. Do keep on top of the 'real world' end of things though & don't depend solely on the course to get you a job.

If getting work on the programming side is not working for you QA is also a back-door into many IT companies where you can then develop into a programming role. QA can be tedious but if you have good problem solving skills & a bit of cop on you can do very well in it.

CA and exams were generally weighted in a sensible way alright.
Having CA along the route keeps you on track too. The only issue is that for some subjects the feedback on the CA was far too late - i.e. after the exams which was silly.

The classes were from 6.30 in the evening - hour & a half lecture followed by a lab session. Some subjects wouldn't have any lab sessions at all so it wasn't always a 9.30 finish.
It was tough going though, I was exhausted from it.

Already having some IT experience will stand you well too, I'd imagine some of the concepts were very daunting for the non IT folk.

Any other questions just fire away. I'd say go for it!

SoupyNorman

Thanks for the info – it’s all gold!

Honestly, If my degree taught me one thing…it was that 80% of what you learn is pretty much redundant! I’d be familiar at the least with all the subjects, the only thing that might trip me abit is Maths if there was any but it wouldn’t put me off. Was there any pl/sql covered?

I’m dead set on this now. I work on a shift rota so I’ll need to clear it with management that I can miss the couple of hours work hither and dither which is on the negative. On the positive, I only work 16days a month so I’ve plenty of days off to study.

2Poc

You're very welcome.

On the maths side there's nothing difficult so don't let that concern you at all.

If you know how to work out a percentage then you'll be Ok

Plsql is specific to Oracle so quite specialised & not covered/worth covering on the course.

Any SQL/programming skills you have or learn are transferrable across database platforms & languages like tsql or plsql are very easy to pick up once you have decent enough SQL and know the basics of programming anyway.

There is some SQL on the course and some database design. Fairly high level stuff to be honest but SQL isn't all that complicated so again its enough to get you going if you have the interest to take it further.

The advice I'd give you is not to be led by the pace of the course material, try & keep a week ahead of the lecturer so you know what's going on, what's coming up & what questions to ask.

Fair play to you for going for it, it takes a lot of dedication to do something like this in the evenings & hopefully your employer will recognise that (& maybe even part fund it).

P.s. I've been working in IT for the past 10 years & have a fairly broad range of experience so if there's anything beyond the scope of the course that I can help you out with don't hesitate to shout.

I'll be starting the Masters in IT this year myself.

Good luck!

SoupyNorman

No worries in the Maths front so *phew*


Well my SQL skills would be in the advanced category, I use it every day so it should be a slight ease on the coursework although I shall not get complacent with that. I’ll try get a nice high grade. I can really understand the ‘keeping ahead’ vibe, during my degree (business studies) I never did anymore then what was put in front of me, I just wasn’t interested but when I switched to the IT streams in 3rd and 4th year I took up DB design and then SQL. The SQL especially had me constantly hungry for more, I found myself in the labs till they closed reading and studying. I have the same interest in programming which I hope will be half the battle, and as SQL marries in so well with other languages like you say, doing a course like this makes perfect sense.

Work ‘should’ be understanding, I would’nt actually look for part-funding as you must remain in the company for ‘x’ amount of time or pay the cash back, not that I’ve any intention of leaving but I want that choice to be mine. I might ask for the time off in lieu of the part funding, broker a deal per say!!!




Cheers man, Good luck with the Master also!

I’ll probably have you plagued.

SoupyNorman

Was just accepted for this course (DC819). Is there anyone here who has enrolled also as I applied and was accepted quite late so Im mindful that the course maybe starting soon or may have started in fact!!

I've called and emailed the registration office and am awaiting a response but thought that Boards may come up trumps for me once again!!

Royale with Cheese

I did the full time version of this course last year. I enjoyed it, mostly, and would encourage people to do it as an introduction to IT.

I'm not sure, but 2Poc may have done the old version of the course, which was twelve 5 credit modules, instead of eight 7.5 credit modules. Basically last year they decided to cut the number of modules, and increase the amount of material per module. I don't think this really worked as lecturers didn't seem arsed adding another 50% to their courses, you could tell some bits had just been tacked on the end for the sake of it.

I'll go through the modules and give you an overview of each one.

Object Oriented Programming (Java)
This is a complete introduction to programming, using java. You start at the very beginning (what is a variable etc.), and work your way up to using objects/classes and some basic interaction between them. I didn't find this too challenging but there were some who struggled, depends completely on the individual.

Web Design
This was probably the worst module on the course. Hwoyon Lee's lectures were enjoyable but could have been done in 2 weeks instead of 6. The web programming you do is very basic stuff, you'll learn enough to make a website that looks like something out of 1995. Should have been more implementation, less heuristics.

Database Design
Introduction to databases. It's more theoretical than practical. You do learn some SQL, but it's just fairly basic queries using SQL server (if you're using SQL every day currently then you'll probably find this stuff very disappointing). A lot of very boring stuff, but I thought it was a useful module.

Information Systems
A general overview of a lot different technologies currently used in industry. This approaches IT from a commerce perspective, a lot of people didn't like it.

Advanced Programming
Basically data structures and algorithms. Explains various different data structures and how to implement them, along with some sorting algorithms etc. The lecturer will just assume you're fairly handy at the basic stuff. Probably the most challenging module on the course, a good one if you're interested in programming.

E-Commerce
If you read the material this is an interesting enough module, but I found it fairly hard to pay attention in class (lecturer makes every quite boring unfortunately). There is a practical project that involves making an online shop complete with shopping cart function, using jsp and sql. This would have been a very handy thing to learn, unfortunately I got caught up in other projects and ended up doing the essay option. Definitely make the website when you get the option.

Operating Systems/Networks
They combined these two modules into one and it ended up a bit of a mess. Didn't do enough of either. Did some shell scripting which was useful, and some basic network stuff, no network programming. It was a bit of a piss take answering exam questions on the history of the internet.

System and User Interaction
Interface design. There is a practical element to this course, actually creating an interface that you test and evaluate. Most of the course is kind of a hybrid between interface design and basic psychology. I thought it was enjoyable enough.

Overall if you have an aptitude for IT you probably shouldn't find the course too difficult. I think of the 20 of us who ended up finishing the course, 8 got distinctions.

Wow this took way longer than I thought it woulld.

SoupyNorman

Thanks a million for that Royale...

Everything you and 2poc have said have only made me more excited about doing this course.

Going to the orientation Friday - All systems are go!

mickoneill30

SoupyNorman wrote: »

Was just accepted for this course (DC819). Is there anyone here who has enrolled also as I applied and was accepted quite late so Im mindful that the course maybe starting soon or may have started in fact!!

I've called and emailed the registration office and am awaiting a response but thought that Boards may come up trumps for me once again!!

They're quite busy. I've just enrolled too. It starts on Tuesday 29th.
They've registration info here
http://www.dcu.ie/registry/registration.shtml
I'll be wandering in on Monday afternoon to get my student card, make sure I've registered properly and see where I need to go on Tuesday evening. The lady I was talking to said they're taking registrations this week and next in the Henry Grattan building (near the Helix apparently).

neil_hiss_a_gum

Hi Royale,
Great course information there. Just wondering how well the course prepares or converts you for a job in computers / IT ? Are there any areas that would be particularly suitable to enter after course completion or is it all just general? Do you know if a distinction allows you to do a masters?
Thanks

CorkFenian

I'm in 2nd year evening GDF, it is a course at masters level, its set at grade level 9...So its fairly challenging,I'm not a programmer so found advanced programming hard and was p***ed off when they included Java project in Networks, tbh having an IT background did me no good for 1st year, it was all programming...Web design and networks pretty handy, but nothing really interesting covered....

doranusan

Glad to see they brought in some Java network programming. When I did it there was nothing like that.
The Java in first semester is terribly slow, painful and overall an awful module. Pay 20 odd euro for 1990s lecture notes written in comic sans that barely touch on object oriented programming.

The 2nd sem programming is interesting, but wasn't delivered very well the year I did it 2008/9, but it was my favourite module overall because it was the only remotely challenging class, that said, you don't actually have to code any of the data structures or algorithms because it's taught in Java.

The 1st semester HCI and web course is awful, complete waste of time, I was pretty fed up with the whole course because of it. The 2nd semester GUI design stuff is also pretty poor for similar reason. In neither class do you really need to be able to do anything practical. Oh here's a lab and some free (3rd party) web tutorials, go and do them if you want. Read a usability book, know some html, get a score in the high 70s without any study. joke.

Databases was ok, not the most interesting lecturer, but covers good material.

Information systems does what it's supposed to, and thats introduce you to high level concepts in IT. Not time consuming and reasonably interesting.

Networks and operating systems, I took a lot out of it, but the lecturer is a bad time manager and shaved off a lot of the course as he went along.

There was a software engineering module of some sort but I forget what he did, you get to use JSP to do a database backed webpage though, so that's worth while to be able to say.

A huge problem I had with this course was that it just seems to lump people with all sorts of education and experience together. The end result is that for some they go way too slow and you don't get as much out of it as you would from other conversion courses. Others just really hated the programming.

If you have played around with a few progrmaming langs and feel you'd like a challenge, don't do this course without looking to follow up with a more advanced one. You don't do nearly enough practical work, and what little you do is not regular enough to get you really good at it.
If you would like to get a better understanding of what software developers do with a view to getting involved in programming projects as a non programmer/developer, ie business analysis, support, project manager, then do it as this is really what I think they're gunning for with it.

Royale with Cheese

neil_hiss_a_gum wrote: »

Hi Royale,
Great course information there. Just wondering how well the course prepares or converts you for a job in computers / IT ? Are there any areas that would be particularly suitable to enter after course completion or is it all just general? Do you know if a distinction allows you to do a masters?
Thanks

It depends what you want to do but I don't think the course is really enough to go straight into an IT job. I realised after about 3 months on the course that I wanted to get into software development and I don't think the course will really prepare you to go straight into that. Although as far as I know one person from the year I graduated in managed to go straight from the course into a development job, so it is possible but you'll need to have a lot of other things going for you as well as this course (a degree in a semi-relevant area, demonstrate high aptitude and enthusiasm for programming, personal programming projects undertaken). I'm not sure about other areas of IT as I never really considered them as career options. I doubt you'd need to know more than what is covered on this course for some of the entry level support jobs that are out there, but given the current surplus of graduates, it might be difficult to get a company would take you on without a full degree.

A distinction (or less) on this course would get you on to some Masters courses, depends what you want to do. A couple of us went on to do the Computer Science Masters via negotiated learning in UCD. Doing the Grad Dip in DCU followed by the Masters in UCD will more or less give you a Computer Science degree in 2 years. The UCD course is a taught Masters and you can pick whatever modules you like. I did mainly 4th year stuff, with a few 3rd year modules and some postgrad stuff from the DCU Software Engineering Masters. If you finish in DCU and are struggling to find a job then I'd definitely recommend the UCD Masters if you can stomach another year in full time education. I'm definitely glad I did it as I'm now working full time in software development. Another from the course went straight into the DCU Software Engineering Masters, and is now also working full time in software development. It can be quite difficult to go straight into that Masters degree though, you might need a strongly relevant undergrad degree such as Maths to be accepted. There are networking postgrad courses in Trinity too I think some people did, I'm not really sure as I never looked into those.