Undem. Engineering And French Diploma

tracker-man

Hey everyone,

I am hoping to start first year undenominated engineering at NUIG this september and I am thinking of doing the Diploma in French at the same time. Is there anyone here who did a diploma at night (once a week) as well as their main degree? Am I stupid to be thinking of doing such a thing, with the workload of an engineering course?

I just ask because I like french, did it for the leaving cert and don't want to give it up just yet. I would love to travel/work in france in the future.

Any advice appreciated!

padunne

Hey tracker,

I did mech eng and to be fair most have a fair workload. You have late labs once a week if not twice and have a nice bit to do in each course. I wouldn't recommend it tbh as you will have enough as you are as chances are you will go out once a week minimum id say. With a job or anything also your left with feck all time. Your lookin at a 40 hour college week then more on top of it.

laoise09

padunne wrote: »

Hey tracker,

I did mech eng and to be fair most have a fair workload. You have late labs once a week if not twice and have a nice bit to do in each course. I wouldn't recommend it tbh as you will have enough as you are as chances are you will go out once a week minimum id say. With a job or anything also your left with feck all time. Your lookin at a 40 hour college week then more on top of it.

i am doing the diploma in spanish. the diploma classes run from 6.30 -9.30 pm once a week and you will probably need to do about 2/3 hours study to back that up outside of class

j.deane1

Foreign language isnt the worst idea, you get the option to do a foreign language in final year of most engineering disciplines, and if you have a french diploma, should fly through it.

From experience, Undenom is a great course to do if your not quite sure what discipline to go into, workload is a little bit higher as you do the "fundamentals" of every eng discipline so if you do choose it, so as padunne says, expect around 40hrs work.

tracker-man

Thanks for the replies.
I have decided not to do the diploma this year, as you have been saying the undenominated workload is pretty high, on par with medicine some people have told me! The French diploma also costs a fair bit, and with college fees, books etc. etc. its alot to be paying out this september all at once especially if I find out the French is crippling me with extra homework and using up valuable fun time!
I plan to do it in second year though. I'll have a way better idea of whether I can handle it with the engineering too. :cool:

joeKel73

I did undenominated in first year, highly recommend it but it is a lot of hours. Nice varied content though so it keeps you interested.

j.deane1 wrote: »

Foreign language isnt the worst idea, you get the option to do a foreign language in final year of most engineering disciplines, and if you have a french diploma, should fly through it.

In Civil the choice was basic German or advanced French (odd I know, especially if you'd done German for the Leaving like me!). This was in second year I think, numerical analysis was also a choice. But these choice modules were not available to those who did undenominated. Just so you know! Undenominated students didn't do first year surveying, and did this in second year if they choose Civil.

tracker-man wrote: »

the undenominated workload is pretty high, on par with medicine some people have told me!

Looks like you have a very leaving cert opinion of medicine! If you know anyone going into medicine you'll soon realise it's all hype. Points are high purely on supply/demand... doesn't mean it's a hard course. Especially in the first year or two, you'll have much more hours. Med students have a lot of learning off to do, engineering content requires far more real thinking. I'll end my rant here.