Springboard - no science or computer programming courses at WIT

sparkling sea

Very disappointed to see the choice of Spring board courses on offer at WIT.

The question has too be asked - why aren't there any computer programming and science course available to unemployed Waterford people. Several companies have vacancies in these areas - people could actually end up with a job in these types of courses were on offer here.

Cert in Heritage and Tour Guiding; Higher Diploma in Business Management; etc.

IS ANYONE INTERESTED IN EDUCATION OR EMPLOYMENT IN WATERFORD :mad: - from the courses on offer by springboard at WIT - NO

cocoshovel

Huh? There are computing courses in W.I.T See edit

Software System developments
Applied Computing
Information Technology
Multimedia Applications
Computer Forensics
Entertainment Systems Development (games design)


EDIT: Ah sorry, I didnt know what springboard was until I saw it on the website now. I still dont know what it is, but I see they dont offer any computing courses really. You could always try apply as a Mature studuent to the regular courses OP? or apply to WCFE etc

sparkling sea

cocoshovel wrote: »

EDIT: Ah sorry, I didnt know what springboard was until I saw it on the website now. I still dont know what it is, but I see they dont offer any computing courses really. You could always try apply as a Mature studuent to the regular courses OP? or apply to WCFE etc

Springboard is supposed to allow unemployed people to improve their job prospects - it fast tracks people through courses. It is meant to target employment areas where vancancies exist and graduates in these areas are in short supply.

Not unusally this is not happening in Waterford - we wont be an attracvtive prospect to new MNC if we don't have the skillset needed.

We won't have the skillset if springboard is not funding the relevant courses

Media999

When are you people just going to accept that Waterford is treated like a ****hole that nobody cares about?

Surprised this hasnt come up earlier. Just compare the FAS courses offered here to the courses offered up in the places that arent treated like ****holes. I.E Dublin, Cork and Galway.

Whos up for learning how to lift with your legs instead of your back? Thats all youll get down here.

wmpdd3

Plenty places in programming etc in wit, if you qualify for btea.

Flyin Irishman

That is crazy considering that IT and science (especially pharmaceuticals) seem to be the biggest, nearly the only, industries hiring at the minute . They should be trying to capitalize on that and make Waterford an attractive area to recruit workers

sparkling sea

wmpdd3 wrote: »

Plenty places in programming etc in wit, if you qualify for btea.

But none on Springboard

wmpdd3

WHAT IS SPRINGBOARD?

Springboard offers job seekers the option to take up a part-time course in higher education and training, free-of-charge.

Over 200 courses are available in higher education colleges around the country, at Levels 6-9 on the National Framework of Qualifications.

All Springboard courses are designed to meet current and future skills needs in Ireland. Learners can study information and communications technology (ICT); the green economy; qualifications for the bio-pharma-pharmachem sectors as well as a range of courses developing innovative business and entrepreneurship skills.

IS it only part-time courses you can do on spring board?

M.E

I'm led to believe a new course..Financial Information Systems...is available on the Springboard initiative. Sounds like a computer based course to me anyway, but not entirely sure.

letsbet

It's a close to 50:50 split between IT stuff and finance. I know the name suggests that but just in case there's any doubt.

PAULCURRAN99

Regarding the zero springboard courses in Waterford Institute of Technology...yes...the question "WHY" should be asked. I will gladly ask if someone can tell me who to ask....who made this unbelievably stupid decision...what committee knew the decision and implemented it....is there someone who has the guts to pop their head above the bureaucratic mush and talk ?

Stereomaniac

This is a very Irish thing, I believe. We always say, oh things are so much better in Dublin/Cork/Galway. In reality things are often the same in these places, only on a larger scale. Maybe not in this case, but if people want change, maybe they should start lobbying then.

PAULCURRAN99

okay...you are right...lobby it is then...i hope to be back with something positive

Max Powers

sparkling sea wrote: »

Very disappointed to see the choice of Spring board courses on offer at WIT.

The question has too be asked - why aren't there any computer programming and science course available to unemployed Waterford people. Several companies have vacancies in these areas - people could actually end up with a job in these types of courses were on offer here.

Cert in Heritage and Tour Guiding; Higher Diploma in Business Management; etc.

IS ANYONE INTERESTED IN EDUCATION OR EMPLOYMENT IN WATERFORD :mad: - from the courses on offer by springboard at WIT - NO

very true, its pathetic and this all in an era when we are meant to be trying to attract those types of jobs, Brutons and our TDs/reps are doing a bang up job on the action plan for jobs in the SE.....give me a break

Media999

IT related courses in WIT even at regular speed have a huge failure and dropout rate.

1 in 5 graduate.

How high would the failure rate be if they tried compress that into half the time?

gears

Ok, I'll get this out from the start I'm doing a Springboard course in W.I.T. and have been on it since last September. The class is approx 50/50 Springboard and employed coming from industry who would be paying for it and the course is applicable to IT and Science and other industries. There are people on it with backgrounds in both who are either currently employed or looking for work. I'm one of the unemployed by the way.
If you're looking at the Springboard site yes there's sweet F.A. on it at the moment but most of these courses run from September so it will be a few months before there will be anything up on it again.
If your not working I know it's not helpful that the courses don't have regular starts but from what I remember when I was applying most courses were higher level type, by that I mean they weren't your usual back to work type scheme/program but are designed to up-skill someone to take on a "proper" (permanent, pensionable etc) type job, if they exist any more, and that takes time and money so it is easier to run these alongside the regular college year.
Yes it's a busy course trying to pack what should probably be a 2 year course into 1 but apart from 2 or 3 dropouts at the very start no one is failing or even close to dropping out at this stage, you just get on with it believing that it will be all worth it in the end.
Overall I think it's a good scheme and maybe I've just been lucky enough to find something that works for me but if you would like to do a course there's someone in W.I.T. dedicated to managing Springboard, there name is on the Springboard Site and you can always call Springboard. I called both before I applied and both were helpful.

libra02

The reason why there is no IT or Science courses on Springboard at the moment is that the new Springboard tender has not happened in any of the Uni or IT's yet.

The Gov issues a tender to all participating Uni and It in the country in Feb / March and they all put together a tender on what they will offer which needs to go back to Gov for approval.

So it be June when new Springboard couses for Sept/Oct 2013 entry are advertised. Same as last year. Entry is mostly always in Sept for majority of Springboard courses.

So no need to be bashing WIT, they have to abide by rules and as gears said conatct information for Springboard person is on website and they are very helpful.

blaa85

Media999 wrote: »

IT related courses in WIT even at regular speed have a huge failure and dropout rate.

1 in 5 graduate.

How high would the failure rate be if they tried compress that into half the time?

Where did you get this information?

johnnykilo

I have to agree with Media999 about the 1 in 5 figure. I did 4 years in Multimedia and out of about 60 in first year, only 9 finished fourth year (and 4 of them were people repeating). So in essence only 5 out of the original 60 started passed, and from talking to my colleagues in the other IT courses, the 1 in 5 figure is accurate.

Media999

blaa85 wrote: »

Where did you get this information?

WIT Head of Science Department.

Tom_Cruise

Why do so few graduate - are they courses that challenging? Is there a similar drop out rate for other courses in WIT?

ratedR

Tom_Cruise wrote: »

Why do so few graduate - are they courses that challenging? Is there a similar drop out rate for other courses in WIT?

Lots of continous assessment meaning you need to be in every lecture and work several hours a night/weekend and essentially put any kind of a life outside college on hold during the 24 weeks. Programming especially needs tons of practice. Speaking as someone who is currently studying a Bsc in one of these courses in WIT, it's mainly the mature students or the school leavers who are actually interested in what they're doing who have the motivation and cop on to put the amount of work in needed. It's very easy to see why the drop-out rate is massive.

O Riain

ratedR wrote: »

Lots of continous assessment meaning you need to be in every lecture and work several hours a night/weekend and essentially put any kind of a life outside college on hold during the 24 weeks. Programming especially needs tons of practice. Speaking as someone who is currently studying a Bsc in one of these courses in WIT, it's mainly the mature students or the school leavers who are actually interested in what they're doing who have the motivation and cop on to put the amount of work in needed. It's very easy to see why the drop-out rate is massive.

So just like any other course so?

Adyx

I think I remember reading before that Institutes of Technology in general, have higher drop-out rates than the universities. Why this is, I can't remember. As for IT related courses, I think a lot of people underestimate the level of maths required and when you combine that with say; OO programming concepts or UNIX file management principles (a particular favourite of mine :pac:), people think that maybe the course isn't for them. Unfortunately there is only so much you can learn about a course from a prospectus and an open day isn't an option for everyone.

average_runner

Adyx wrote: »

I think I remember reading before that Institutes of Technology in general, have higher drop-out rates than the universities. Why this is, I can't remember. As for IT related courses, I think a lot of people underestimate the level of maths required and when you combine that with say; OO programming concepts or UNIX file management principles (a particular favourite of mine :pac:), people think that maybe the course isn't for them. Unfortunately there is only so much you can learn about a course from a prospectus and an open day isn't an option for everyone.

I did the system development course full time from 94-98. We started with 120 and had 20 left in 4th year.

Reason for high drop out rate was u needed 60% each year to get thru.

Back then it was more theory than technical so hope that s changed.

Tips for people while waiting on spring board:
Do a java course online.
Do mysql courses online.
Look at doing a small project that u could show case to companies.
Look at testing tools. Qa is good work for starting off in IT.

ratedR

O Riain wrote: »

So just like any other course so?

Not necessarily. I have friends in other level 8 courses who have 7 or 8 hours a week less than us. Not every course is 80% CA either, and as I mentioned, the programming needs hours and hours of attention or you just wont get it and will have little choice but to drop out.

I'm not looking for a row/debate either, I'm just pointing out why I think Computer Science courses have a high drop out rate, as was asked by a previous poster.

Adyx

average_runner wrote: »

I did the system development course full time from 94-98. We started with 120 and had 20 left in 4th year.

Reason for high drop out rate was u needed 60% each year to get thru.

Back then it was more theory than technical so hope that s changed.

Tips for people while waiting on spring board:
Do a java course online.
Do mysql courses online.
Look at doing a small project that u could show case to companies.
Look at testing tools. Qa is good work for starting off in IT.

Well I can't speak for other courses but I did the part-time (over 2 years) IT Support course and there was a lot of, in my opinion, unnecessary theory such as the above mentioned file management. I think a lot of the people on the course were expecting something more practical and there was quite a few people on the course who had been sent there from their job (level 1 support type jobs) but would have gotten no use from the theory.

I'd definitely agree with you though. I'm doing Oracle's OCA Java certification at the moment while I'm waiting to hopefully get back in to WIT in September. It's good to at least keep practising it and it is something you have to have an interest in.

johnnykilo

Adyx wrote: »

Well I can't speak for other courses but I did the part-time (over 2 years) IT Support course and there was a lot of, in my opinion, unnecessary theory such as the above mentioned file management. I think a lot of the people on the course were expecting something more practical and there was quite a few people on the course who had been sent there from their job (level 1 support type jobs) but would have gotten no use from the theory.

I'd definitely agree with you though. I'm doing Oracle's OCA Java certification at the moment while I'm waiting to hopefully get back in to WIT in September. It's good to at least keep practising it and it is something you have to have an interest in.

Sorry to go OT, but is the Oracle OCA Java certification the new name for the SCJA? Is there much of a difference in content or is it basically just a name change?

Adyx

johnnykilo wrote: »

Sorry to go OT, but is the Oracle OCA Java certification the new name for the SCJA? Is there much of a difference in content or is it basically just a name change?

Yeah that's it. I can't really comment on the content but someone in the Development forum recently mentioned the new exam (SE 7) is quite a bit harder than the previous ones. I've done some Java before so it's not too bad yet.

Kracken

Has anyone considered that science and programming are subjects that you don't just pick in a short period of time. Therefore you need to have a full time / long term enrollment for it.

Having been through a lot of full time 3rd level education, i have found that the structure and syllabus of under graduate courses does not really reflect on what employers need.

Our 3rd level institutes have become very good at teaching our students how to pass exams and not actually how to apply what they have learned.

If they focused more live project related methods of teaching, ensuring that all levels of understanding within the classroom are catered for then, it would help reduce employment.

Granted I finished in 2003 and a lot could have changed, but I am just basing my opinion of what employers have said to me.

Media999

Tom_Cruise wrote: »

Why do so few graduate - are they courses that challenging? Is there a similar drop out rate for other courses in WIT?

Several reasons.

The whole "i like computer games so ill love programming." group of people. Lack of research.

As has been said already its a 9am to 11pm working day. You wouldnt believe the sheer volume of work. It all builds on each other. You cant just leave for a week and get back into it. What you learn this week you will use 100% next week. etc etc all year. This is something you set 3/4 years of your life aside for. Out of 100 people in first year you can count the people who our always out socialising on one hand. and theyll be gone after first year.

Emotional Immaturity. The amount of kids in college is shocking. Not sure what the solution is. raising the leaving cert age ideally but thats a major step. Maybe teach programming as part of maths in secondary school.

The mature students who hear there are "jobs in IT" who dont really have much of an interest in PCs. An android phone is too hard for some of these people to figure out but they still think that a degree course in programming is a wise choice.

People who go to college just for the sake of higher welfare etc.. tend to not last long.

Wouldnt agree with the maths as its actually not too maths heavy. Its logic heavy but not much of everything else. Youll find anything on google but the skill is to know how to use it.

Cant think of anything else right now but you get the point.

JMcL

Though not Springboard in that the requirements are more stringent (see "Eligibility" in the link), this course might be of interest to some. The course is free for jobseekers. There's also an article on Silicon Republic here