Did you make the right choice with regards to college?

astonaidan

Good God No, I picked my first course on a recommendation of our secondary school councilor, it was a class I had no interest in, the second time I picked Architecture which was something my parents always wanted me to do it, but I did 2 years of it got bored and decided to take time off and travel the world, Im now going to pick something Im interested in like Business, Accountancy or Teaching

Mugatuu

Honestly no I didn't choose the right course! I just didn't have the head to sit down and apply myself to study properly. What I really wanted to do was home ec and biology teaching but I missed out on it with my points. Im currently doing a two year course course in culinary arts, honestly the college is grand and I've made some really good friends but I'm just bored in the course. I was working in the industry and felt a bit of pressure from my boss to go do the course, she was like a mother to me and kinda thought oh sure if I don't get the other courses it's only two years :rolleyes: Althought there is always work to get its just not a job I enjoy and just can't see myself staying in. After I finish my current course im hoping to go travel and I'm seriously considering when I get back (and I'm old enough) to apply as a mature student for home ec teaching. For the record I think making college and career choices at 17/18 is crazy, people just aren't mature enough at that age to make these decisions!

abelard

Hard one for me to say. On the whole, no, I don't think I made the right choice at undergraduate. I did a degree in law and realised pretty quickly that i had no interest in practicing. But I'm a good academic so I sailed through 3 years with a good 2.1, and legitimately enjoyed a few of the subjects such as jurisprudence, evidence and criminology. Also, I actually went on to get an MSc with distinction from a world top 20 university in a criminology related field. I think I would have done it anyway though even had I not done criminology in my undergrad. Criminology was something I had a long interest in but there wasn't real way to study it as an undergraduate in Ireland except through a law or psychology degree.

My big regret is the degree now feels useless, and I think of all the knowledge I could have gained in those 3 years that could set me apart. I've forgotten at this stage all but the most rudimentary legal principles and most obvious case law. I wish I had done something numerate, possibly statistics or computational mathematics as I would have gotten so much more out of them to take forward. I'm in a decent job now but would love to return to academia down the line and those kind of skills would be hugely useful.

A second regret was not having the confidence to look at degrees outside Ireland. I don't claim to be massively intelligent, but I am a very good academic, if that makes sense. I wasn't confident enough at 17 to realise I could have gone to the likes of Oxford or Cambridge and excelled there. It was only in my masters when I was outpacing Oxbridge grads that I was struck by regret.

My advice - if you dont know what you want to be in life, perhaps rephrase the question to ask yourself what skills would you like to develop in uni. What kind of things would you like to be able to do in 3 years, even at a very high level. If you find this easier to work out, pick a course based on this and I can almost guarantee you that you will develop ideas for jobs which can utilise these skills during your 3/4 years.

_Kaiser_

Difficult one to answer to be honest...

I'd always had an interest in computers so come CAO time naturally I went and put down various computer related courses - of course the problem was that I wasn't much of a student so didn't get my first choice.

Ended up in a 2 year course in Carlow which was great for the oul social life and it brought me out of myself a bit (living away from home and all that even though money was very tight), but by the end of year 2 I was still no more of a student than I'd been in school (but still managed to do enough to pass) so when one of the big multinationals called offering me a call centre job I jumped at it.

That's when I realised that I learn best by doing. Inside of 8 months I was promoted with a significant hike in salary (ah the good ole days when it seemed like a fortune! ) and over the next few years did various support roles in that company before moving briefly to one of their competitors.

It was after that though when I moved into a public sector role managing the IT needs for the place that things started to really come together - I was effectively my own boss and had more-or-less a free hand to do whatever I felt necessary which taught me a lot about budgeting, dealing with vendors, negotiating with internal stakeholders (many of whom didn't see the value of it at all) and so on.

I know the public sector is an easy target on Boards and not without cause I grant ye, but even I was making less money than friends of mine (who thought I was mad to have accepted it), often working out of hours from home (unpaid) I enjoyed it and found it rewarding to see the results of my efforts first hand.

Of course then the recession hit and being on a contract I had to be let go, but by the end of it we were a leader in IT for the sector and a model for them to follow.

Still, it taught me that while I enjoy IT and messing about with servers and so on, I found the back office stuff more fulfilling in the end (especially as by then I had a small team reporting to me - more skills to learn) so that's what I looked for.

Of course in the meantime the rest of the world had moved on and while I'd been working away, equivalent jobs now required degrees and years of experience (the latter I had of course) but I eventually got a server admin role and even though it meant commuting 1000km a week to do it and it wasn't what I wanted to do, it got me back working and a year later, I got my reward when I was promoted back to the same level I'd previously been at.

So now I have my small team again, have become far too good with Excel for a former techie, money isn't bad and I'm a lot happier overall really.... so I suppose, yes I probably made the right decision way back then - even if it has taken about 15 years to realise it

(whoa.. didn't realise I'd rambled on so long!)

ronano

Nah i did it for the sake of doing a degree, in good times when a degree in anything was grand sure won't the money fall from the sky somehow! I'm going back to do a degree i'm interested in and will work at in september.

Jellicoe

_Bella_ wrote: »

A lot of Leaving Cert students are making their CAO choices this week. Like a lot of them I am wondering if I am making the right choice both with regards to course and college. So I am wondering do you feel you made the right choice the first time around or not, and if not why. Also if not, where you able to transfer/ change the direction of your career and do you have any regrets?

Don't worry about it, no one has a crystal ball, you might as well throw darts at a dartboard to make the right choices, you'll be just as sucessful.

playedalive

This is a really interesting thread. With my finals coming up and job interviews, I always wonder if I picked the right college course (Languages).

For me, it's a yes and no answer. I think I probably should have made a more careful decision when I was filling out the CAO. I loved languages and they were my best subjects throughout school. It was never a chore studying them. I loved them (and still do). So obviously, my CAO was made up of different types of language courses. At that time, I liked the idea of being a teacher. In the end, I got my languages course through arts. At the start, I liked the course. But, towards the end, It turned out to be more literature study over language and culture(which was mostly my cup of tea). I can't wait to be finished.

While I learned a lot through my degree, I can only offer languages in terms of a job spec. I went for an interview the other day and the interviewer told me my downfall was a lack of a business qualification. My degree seems to overall suit an academic career, which is great. But, I do not want to be an academic.

Having said that, I have had some great experiences through the degree. I lived in France and Spain for a few summers. I also met and made some good friends, and did a lot of growing up/soulsearching. In that aspect, I don't regret my choice. In terms of a career, I probably should have done business and languages.

UCDVet

Being 100% honest - I wish I'd never went to college. I really wish I wouldn't have spent the time and effort getting a Masters degree.

Absolutely worthless.

College was fun though, lots of drinking and partying. The second degree was nothing but worthless classes. Huge waste of time (and money). I'd say it is the worst decision I've made in my life thus far.

Anastazia

ucdvet, what degrees did you do? Did you do Veterinary?

UCDVet

Anastazia wrote: »

ucdvet, what degrees did you do? Did you do Veterinary?

Nah - sorry, my name is very misleading.

Computer Science

And to be fair - I'm not trying to say all degrees are a waste, just that mine was. I'm sure there are great CS programs out there, or maybe even that my problem was more to do with me than the programs I was involved with.

I signed up because I felt like it was what I was 'supposed' to do. 'Go to college!' Then I got a job. Then I thought, 'I should get a Master's degree'. Growing up everyone always told me to go to school, so I never really questioned it. And Computer Science was well respected so everyone just encouraged me to do it.

Canard

playedalive wrote: »

This is a really interesting thread. With my finals coming up and job interviews, I always wonder if I picked the right college course (Languages).

For me, it's a yes and no answer. I think I probably should have made a more careful decision when I was filling out the CAO. I loved languages and they were my best subjects throughout school. It was never a chore studying them. I loved them (and still do). So obviously, my CAO was made up of different types of language courses. At that time, I liked the idea of being a teacher. In the end, I got my languages course through arts. At the start, I liked the course. But, towards the end, It turned out to be more literature study over language and culture(which was mostly my cup of tea). I can't wait to be finished.

I think you are future me. :P I'm finishing up my first year of studying languages. I loved the idea of it, but yeah, literature has sort of ruined it for me and I hate how seriously the lecturers take it, as if any employer will ever care that it was studied. :rolleyes: For months I had those business + language courses on my CAO and then one day I just took them all off for pure languages. I didn't like business enough, nor did I have the innovative mind that I'd imagine is required, but I still wish I'd done them I think. Though I agree with you on how it's never a chore to study them, I don't feel like I've studied at all this year because I really enjoy it, as does everyone else in my course.

Prodigious

UCDVet wrote: »

Nah - sorry, my name is very misleading.

Computer Science

And to be fair - I'm not trying to say all degrees are a waste, just that mine was. I'm sure there are great CS programs out there, or maybe even that my problem was more to do with me than the programs I was involved with.

I signed up because I felt like it was what I was 'supposed' to do. 'Go to college!' Then I got a job. Then I thought, 'I should get a Master's degree'. Growing up everyone always told me to go to school, so I never really questioned it. And Computer Science was well respected so everyone just encouraged me to do it.

Why did you find it a waste? Did you do it in UCD?

herisson

I thought i wanted to become a teacher. Here i am 4 years later with a ****ty arts degree. I loved my course dont get me wrong, i love Irish History, but at 18 i thought that was what i wanted. Ideally i should have repeated my LC. But all i can say is thank God for conversion courses and masters open to graduates of all disciplines.

Odysseus

Pixie-Fairy wrote: »

I thought i wanted to become a teacher. Here i am 4 years later with a ****ty arts degree. I loved my course dont get me wrong, i love Irish History, but at 18 i thought that was what i wanted. Ideally i should have repeated my LC. But all i can say is thank God for conversion courses and masters open to graduates of all disciplines.

You loved the topic, but the degree is sh!te! Why? What post-grad will you go for?

Sarky

Absolutely. I wanted to be a scientist. Now I work in scientific research. The pay's not amazing, but it's plenty more than the dole and it's a bloody fun job. How many of you wake up thinking "Oh boy! Time for work, yay!" without a trace of sarcasm?

God, my life is great...

toastedpickles

Done about 6 months in interior architecture in CIT, copped on that it was a load of balls, also the fact I got told I was doing things far to technical for the second year, stuff "even third years wouldn't be doing"

Going for architectural technology in DIT this year, so hopefully I'll be told I'm not technical enough :P

SouperComputer

I decided to skip it. So far so good, so I'll say yes.

herisson

Odysseus wrote: »

You loved the topic, but the degree is sh!te! Why? What post-grad will you go for?

There is only one thing i wanted to do with it when i realised i didnt want to be a teacher, but i cant coz i didnt get the grade and its very difficult to get into. Even still it is very difficult to get a job/postgrad with history if you didnt get the 1st or 2.1. Im going into HRM or IT im still deciding but applying for both because its the same college and same application form, leaning towards IT. Both were on my CAO right after the course i got.

Odysseus

Pixie-Fairy wrote: »

There is only one thing i wanted to do with it when i realised i didnt want to be a teacher, but i cant coz i didnt get the grade and its very difficult to get into. Even still it is very difficult to get a job/postgrad with history if you didnt get the 1st or 2.1. Im going into HRM or IT im still deciding but applying for both because its the same college and same application form, leaning towards IT. Both were on my CAO right after the course i got.

Cheers, that makes a tad more sense to me, I just couldn't work out why you were saying that.

Is there no other way you get into teaching? I know you would have to do the post-grad training at a minimum, but surely there must be other things you can do to address your degree grade?

That is of course if this is the real career you want.

Hercule Poirot

I remember when I filled in the CAO form there was only one course I wanted to do, Arts (yeah I know) in NUIG. Decided to fill the rest of the form, both sides, by literally flicking through the booklet, going "ah, that looks like fun" and writing it down. Anyways, didn't get Arts in NUIG ended up doing Chemistry in GMIT, very glad it worked out that way though because I actually turned out to be quite good at the course (not amazingly brilliant, but I passed it handy enough) and now I have a decent job that I don't despise (except on Mondays of course :P)

herisson

Odysseus wrote: »

Cheers, that makes a tad more sense to me, I just couldn't work out why you were saying that.

Is there no other way you get into teaching? I know you would have to do the post-grad training at a minimum, but surely there must be other things you can do to address your degree grade?

That is of course if this is the real career you want.

I dont want to be a teacher. Id rather be a beggar on the street than be a teacher. I know full well im not suited to be one, i dont like kids or teenagers. It was another course that was difficult to get into, i didnt get the 2.1, i was 2% off getting that grade. I am not making sense today.

Thats why im doing an open masters that is open to all graduates of all disciplines and tbh, im much more suited and interested to those careers.

Corkfeen

Odysseus wrote: »

You loved the topic, but the degree is sh!te! Why? What post-grad will you go for?

I think it's more the concept that one of the most likely careers tends to be teaching and it can drain of a lot of the love which you have for the subject. I'm doing English and History, I love one particular aspect of history(US history, in particular foreign policy) and i'd probably happily do a masters in it however I think I'd simply prefer to keep it as a hobby. I also love aspects of English but the very concept of teaching it seems so horrible to me.

Really, I think it's more the fact that you have to be a certain of type of person to dedicate all of your career to academic subjects.(Granted there are options outside of academia) I wouldn't consider an arts degree to be useless or ****e. We are never not going to need Historians, Economists, Mathematicians(people seem to forgot that can be done in arts),journalists and teachers. Unfortunately, many people waste away their time in the course (although this happens in tons of courses, Arts just tends to be used as the fall guy) or realise that they don't want to pursue it but follow it regardless.

I would like to point out to those who are regretting their choices for university that options always exist after you finish your course in terms of pursuing a different path for your future. I'm entering an entirely field next year so i'm a case in point. :pac:

ProudDUB

Boy, this thread has opened a can of worms in me noggin ! :eek:

Always, always, always wanted to do a degree in History. The past has always been my thing. Got the points for it and all. My mother talked me out of doing it. Said that when I graduated, all I would be qualified to do would be teach which I wasn't cut out for, or be a researcher & earn peanuts. So I was talked into repeating my Leaving, and going for something Commerce/Business Studies related. She convinced me the job opportunities were greater there. This was during a very bad recession in the late 80's. Parents were more focused on their kids getting proper jobs after college, and not any of that "feeling fulfilled in what you do" ballsology.

So I did 4 years doing a Business Studies degree and, I hated every minute of it. I never did it or Economics or Accountancy in school, so I was always struggling to catch up. I barely qualified, and certainly not well enough to get a decent job out if it. Have drifted from profession to profession ever since really, totally lacking focus and drive. The biggest regret of my life, hands down was not following my heart, and doing my History degree. I may have been earning peanuts, but at least I would have been happy and satisfied. I think.

Then again, I applied for a US green card the year after I left college. I got it and I moved there 18 months later. I had wonderful life of excitement and variety in the US that I probably never would have had if I was still plugging away in UCD, writing my magnum opus on Michael Collins granny inventing Clonakilty Black Pudding or whatever. So swings and roundabouts I suppose.....:rolleyes:

UCDVet

Prodigious wrote: »

Why did you find it a waste? Did you do it in UCD?

I don't want this to be a giant rant But the particular program I choose (not UCD - this was a university in the US) didn't seem to benefit me, if that makes any sense.

I paid money, I went to class, I did what I was told to do, I received very good marks and ended up with a few fancy looking pieces of paper.

But none of what I did seemed to 'stick' with me. There were entire classes that I couldn't tell you anything about. There are some other classes where I could tell you about something nobody seems to care about. I never say, 'Oh yeah - I learned about that in school, let me show you.' Never.

If they could magically erase my memory and return my money, I'd gladly take the money.

Raging_Ninja

Hadn't a clue what I was doing - went into science and muddled through first year, then failed second year twice.

So I started working in a busy bar while I figured out what to do with myself - looking back it was an act of self hatred to be honest.

So I did the work thing, saving money and got some help from the career guidance people in college, who were fantastic. I started an Arts course, studying IT and economics, and it all went well. Did the masters and got a job half way through (in the middle of the worst global recession in a century, so f*ck you people who diss arts), and I am quite happy now.

Looking back, do I regret doing science? No - it helped to shape who I am now, and I think that it's worked out pretty good so far.

lahalane

To benefit my career....no. To enjoy myself....yes.

IrishExpat

Based on the course content and general lack of application to my current career, it was a bad bad choice. Aircraft systems (avionics), now doing web design and marketing, as well as a stint teaching English.

That said the opportunity for networking - both socially and business-wise was a definite advantage, as well as learning a lot about research and getting a project/task in on time definitely stood to me.

I initially chose my course based on what I 'thought' I would get in the LC (I got higher than expected in the end), which shows some gaping holes in the points system.

Antar Bolaeisk

I didn't, I had a successful application to aeronautical engineering in Queens which I took moreso for the prestige than an interest in aviation. I was then afraid to admit this so stuck with it for two years. Eventually I swapped to something I was much more interested in. My advice to anyone who is currently applying for courses, pick the ones you genuinely have an interest in, not what you think your parents or classmates think you should do.

Legs.Eleven

Career-wise...definitely not. Craic-wise....big time.

Catkins407

Nope wrong choice completely . Only did because my two older sisters did the same degrees and they were pressuring me . I thought I may as well because if I get stuck they can help me out. While the degree did come in very useful and I was able to do more interesting post grad stuff from it I never really used it in the work place. Actually ended up in the tech side of anywhere I worked which really suited me as I love more factual scientific stuff. The degree was only useful to show employers I was capable of a certain level if thinking but really it was the experience I gained in the more technical areas that got me my jobs.