Springboard ICT UCD or NCI

sakiboy

Hi Folks,
I have provisionally been offered a place on

1. Graduate/University Certificate in Information and communications Technology in UCD

or

2. Higher Diploma in Science in Web technologies in the National College of Ireland.

Both courses are one year in length part time.
All I know about the UCD course is that we learn C and Java.Im finding it difficult to find information on it.I have a few years FoxPro programming experience but havn't been able to secure a position for two years.I am happy to be in a position to choose between these two courses and have positive feelings about both, but would like to know if there is anyone out there who studied either of these courses and how were employment prospects improved.
Also Would prospective employers have a preference to seeing either course on the CV of an applicant ?

Basically which course is more likely to get me back working in IT.
Any replies greatly appreciated.

Best regards
sb.

uck51js9zml2yt

I did the h.dip in its first year. Well worth doing.

sakiboy

Thanks for the feedback Tatranska.My only reservation about the dip is that it's three nights a week and all day every second saturday.Looks pretty intensive.Can I ask generally how folks faired after the course, did many gain employment , go on to further study ?

thanks
sb.

uck51js9zml2yt

When I did it, it was monday,wednesday and every saturday. It was a lot of work for a non techie but I got a 2.1

A lot of us went on to further study. There's a good group of us doing the Postgrad Dip in Cloud Computing at the NCI. hope to be on target for a 2.2.

Others went on to do other courses elsewhere.

Some got jobs. One girl did very well and is a ruby programmer but she did the work on the course to get there.

I'm doing an internship in cloud services to give me the experience I need with the course.

And after 2 years of study, I'm considering something else while I can take advantage of springboard. I'm looking at computer forensics.

If you have any more questions, feel free to ask.

sakiboy

Thanks for the info tatranska . It has been very helpful .Best of luck with your internship and course this year.

sb.

beg55

Marissa Lively Tube wrote: »

When I did it, it was monday,wednesday and every saturday. It was a lot of work for a non techie but I got a 2.1

A lot of us went on to further study. There's a good group of us doing the Postgrad Dip in Cloud Computing at the NCI. hope to be on target for a 2.2.

Others went on to do other courses elsewhere.

Some got jobs. One girl did very well and is a ruby programmer but she did the work on the course to get there.

I'm doing an internship in cloud services to give me the experience I need with the course.

And after 2 years of study, I'm considering something else while I can take advantage of springboard. I'm looking at computer forensics. You have upskilled use it to get a job and not take up limited places...

If you have any more questions, feel free to ask.

Hi

I am interested in doing the Bsc In ITB.

You seem to have done a couple of courses already and have upskilled and have an internship also. Surely the springboard courses are for someone like me who has not done any courses yet. What happens if there are limited places and I don't get on the course because someone like you who already has had a number of opportunities gets 'my' place. Is that fair ???

BTW good luck with the internship. I hope it leads to a job so your so busy you don't need to do another course... your third...

RacoonQueen

You do not have to be unskilled, you have to be unemployed.

The courses are to help people gain new skills and expand on what they already have to increase their chances at regaining employment. The more courses tatranska has, the more chance they have at getting employment...

Edit: Also tatranska never said they have done two springboard courses, just that they have done the course that is now being offered to some people via springboard.

uck51js9zml2yt

beg55 wrote: »

Hi

I am interested in doing the Bsc In ITB.

You seem to have done a couple of courses already and have upskilled and have an internship also. Surely the springboard courses are for someone like me who has not done any courses yet. What happens if there are limited places and I don't get on the course because someone like you who already has had a number of opportunities gets 'my' place. Is that fair ???

BTW good luck with the internship. I hope it leads to a job so your so busy you don't need to do another course... your third...

Congrats beg55, on your very first post you manage to pontificate on something you know nothing about.:D

From experience of Springboard there is a drop out of at least 60% by the end of the course, many just couldn't hack it, wouldn't put in the work or realised the course wasn't what they wanted to do. So perhaps you need to point your accusations at those people who took a place from those who wanted it and then jumped ship after a few weeks giving no thought to those who really wanted it and couldn't get it...not to mention wasting €3500 of taxpayers money. The colleges get the money up front!

The reason I want to go on to do digital security is so I can specialize having done a course that was broad in it's syllabus.

Racoon is correct, these course are to allow people to upskill and expand on skills already gained. The internship is to allow me to get real world experience to support the qualifications. Hopefully there will be a job at the end of it, if not, i at least have some experience to allow me to get a job.


These courses are allowing me to change a 20 year career path into something new so I wont apologize for doing them and taking advantage of the opportunity given to me to upskill.

donegal11

Marissa Lively Tube wrote: »

From experience of Springboard there is a drop out of at least 60% by the end of the course, many just couldn't hack it, wouldn't put in the work or realised the course wasn't what they wanted to do.

Was the dropout really that high, was there any intervention on the college to support struggling applicants such extra tutorials?

uck51js9zml2yt

donegal11 wrote: »

Was the dropout really that high, was there any intervention on the college to support struggling applicants such extra tutorials?

There was a high drop out rate. Part of it was due to people signing up for the wrong course and the other part was that people with no technical background weren't willing to put the work in to do the course work.

There was a lot of coding on both courses which was a steep learning curve particularly for non techies.

How much you learn is dependent on how much time you put into it. There is support in the labs but its limited.
Its a level 8 course and as such requires a lot of self learning. Level 9 (which I'm doing now) requires a lot more work. It wouldn't be worth getting otherwise.

bazpaul1

Marissa Lively Tube wrote: »

There was a high drop out rate. Part of it was due to people signing up for the wrong course and the other part was that people with no technical background weren't willing to put the work in to do the course work.

There was a lot of coding on both courses which was a steep learning curve particularly for non techies.

How much you learn is dependent on how much time you put into it. There is support in the labs but its limited.
Its a level 8 course and as such requires a lot of self learning. Level 9 (which I'm doing now) requires a lot more work. It wouldn't be worth getting otherwise.

Interesting...good to know! I'm actually a techie, but am scared (or disinterested) in too much coding

Let me ask - do you think the course gave you the skills to set up your own "proper" website. By proper I mean coding everything from scratch with no CMS's, your own SQL and PHP calls?

I would be interested in possibly setting up a web business after the course and the NCI prospectus says that the course is geared towards this.

uck51js9zml2yt

bazpaul1 wrote: »

Interesting...good to know! I'm actually a techie, but am scared (or disinterested) in too much coding

Let me ask - do you think the course gave you the skills to set up your own "proper" website. By proper I mean coding everything from scratch with no CMS's, your own SQL and PHP calls?

I would be interested in possibly setting up a web business after the course and the NCI prospectus says that the course is geared towards this.

The course doesnt cover php.

its ruby on rails/mysql, html,css,jscript and a few more bits.

it will give you a starting point to work from. I'm happy building my own site but you'll get as much out of it as you want. one of the girls went on to be a ruby programmer. im working with a guy who did the first semester of the course.

gerarda

bazpaul1 wrote: »

Interesting...good to know! I'm actually a techie, but am scared (or disinterested) in too much coding

Let me ask - do you think the course gave you the skills to set up your own "proper" website. By proper I mean coding everything from scratch with no CMS's, your own SQL and PHP calls?

I would be interested in possibly setting up a web business after the course and the NCI prospectus says that the course is geared towards this.

If your not interested in coding then maybe this course is not for you as there is a fair bit of it which takes up a lot of time but having just completed the first semester I can confirm it can be done if you put the work in, and yes this course will give you the skills to set up a proper website. I am in IT since '98 and knew nothing about web development, now I do. Best of luck!

beg55

donegal11 wrote: »

Was the dropout really that high, was there any intervention on the college to support struggling applicants such extra tutorials?

From experience of Springboard there is a drop out of at least 60% .. (Does this apply to just your current course ?)


Springboard has been running for just one year so is this dropout rate for all of your courses or is it similar to your first course ? and the Second ??

Where do you get the figures from ? How accurate are your figures ?

Were you on a daytime or evening course ??

How many of the dropouts were due to people getting jobs ??

Awaiting your reply in aiticipation....

beg55

From experience of Springboard there is a drop out of at least 60% .. (Does this apply to just your current course ?)


Springboard has been running for just one year so is this dropout rate for all of your courses or is it similar to your first course ? and the Second ??

Where do you get the figures from ? How accurate are your figures ?

Were you on a daytime or evening course ??

How many of the dropouts were due to people getting jobs ??

Awaiting your reply in aiticipation....

beg55

From experience of Springboard there is a drop out of at least 60% .. (Does this apply to just your current course ?)


Springboard has been running for just one year so is this dropout rate for all of your courses or is it similar to your first course ? and the Second ??

Where do you get the figures from ? How accurate are your figures ?

Were you on a daytime or evening course ??

How many of the dropouts were due to people getting jobs ??

Awaiting your reply in aiticipation....

donegal11

why did you quote me ?

jax700303

Hi Guys,

I have been offered a place in this course as well as in the FAS software developer, which one do you reckon is the best one?
and the one that will give me a fair chance to get into the IT industry, I have a background in hospitality and retail and have done the
FAS web page design course a few years back.

Stamply

jax700303 wrote: »

Hi Guys,

I have been offered a place in this course as well as in the FAS software developer, which one do you reckon is the best one?
and the one that will give me a fair chance to get into the IT industry, I have a background in hospitality and retail and have done the
FAS web page design course a few years back.

Both courses will be very tough for you with your background. The web design one will be of little or no use. Before you start either go to this page:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/194812/list-of-freely-available-programming-books

and read all of the books on data structures and algorithms. If you want a job in software then this is what you must do prior to starting these courses.

The number of people who get jobs in these courses in minimal. But the colleges will allow people into masters programmes afterwards to beef up the numbers in order to keep the gravy train going. They are directly paid by the government and as institutions have little ability to train large numbers of people quickly to industry standard employable levels.

The government puts pressure on companies to take on students in these courses as interns, but these internships don't teach much either, they usually just give them administrative repetitive work. It takes a lot of resources to train an intern and you only really get that if you're lucky enough to spark the attention of a small company with time to mentor you and tell you what to study after the course. They expect your loyalty afterward, but rarely tie you into contracts, like Ericsson or large companies do.

The best advice is, don't touch a programming language for between two weeks and two months, depending upon your proficiency in Maths and the time you can dedicate daily.

Then in the course you'll have a better background to actually code.

In these courses they migrate you to frameworks quickly, which makes it feel like you're doing something, but is really a load of bollox because the understanding you gain of the core language - like Ruby in Ruby on Rails or Java in Groovy on Grails - is limited.

After studying Data Structures and Algorithms focus on a language, using online books, tutorials and learning tools online - like tryruby.org or Codecademy.com - and then in 6 months start a course. Either FAS or the college will do. It really doesn't matter as long as you have done the work prior to starting the course.

I started another thread last week looking for books for learning Data Structures & Algorithms, got a great response, find that thread.

Follow that advice and you'll increase you chances of getting a job tenfold. This is coming from someone who was in your position and is in NCI doing a conversion course with a large network of friends and colleagues in software.

uck51js9zml2yt

Stamply wrote: »

Both courses will be very tough for you with your background. The web design one will be of little or no use. Before you start either go to this page:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/194812/list-of-freely-available-programming-books

and read all of the books on data structures and algorithms. If you want a job in software then this is what you must do prior to starting these courses.

The number of people who get jobs in these courses in minimal. But the colleges will allow people into masters programmes afterwards to beef up the numbers in order to keep the gravy train going. They are directly paid by the government and as institutions have little ability to train large numbers of people quickly to industry standard employable levels.

The government puts pressure on companies to take on students in these courses as interns, but these internships don't teach much either, they usually just give them administrative repetitive work. It takes a lot of resources to train an intern and you only really get that if you're lucky enough to spark the attention of a small company with time to mentor you and tell you what to study after the course. They expect your loyalty afterward, but rarely tie you into contracts, like Ericsson or large companies do.

The best advice is, don't touch a programming language for between two weeks and two months, depending upon your proficiency in Maths and the time you can dedicate daily.

Then in the course you'll have a better background to actually code.

In these courses they migrate you to frameworks quickly, which makes it feel like you're doing something, but is really a load of bollox because the understanding you gain of the core language - like Ruby in Ruby on Rails or Java in Groovy on Grails - is limited.

After studying Data Structures and Algorithms focus on a language, using online books, tutorials and learning tools online - like tryruby.org or Codecademy.com - and then in 6 months start a course. Either FAS or the college will do. It really doesn't matter as long as you have done the work prior to starting the course.

I started another thread last week looking for books for learning Data Structures & Algorithms, got a great response, find that thread.

Follow that advice and you'll increase you chances of getting a job tenfold. This is coming from someone who was in your position and is in NCI doing a conversion course with a large network of friends and colleagues in software.

Words fail me after reading this diatribe..

Having done both the H.Dip and Postgrad in Cloud at the NCI, I've never read such nonsense.

Granted there is a high dropout rate. Part of it is because its free and people aren't out of pocket leaving. For most its a case that they don't want to do so much programing, for others, they just couldn't be bothered doing the work necessary to complete the course.
For those who want to do programing and do the extra work there are jobs. One friend off the H.Dip is now a Ruby programmer and doing well.
For others who dont want to spend our lives programing, there are other jobs in IT where having a knowledge of the various languages lets us talk to developers with knowledge of what they are talking about.

Having had 20 years moving trucks, I completed both courses and didn't need to spend 6 months looking at algorythms or data structures.

You will get out of the course as much as you put in. Its a steep learning curve but at level 8 what do you expect.The H.Dip is a conversion course to turn non-techies into techies. Having completed it, I can say it does exactly what it says on the tin.:D

Stamply

Marissa Lively Tube wrote: »

Words fail me after reading this diatribe..

Having done both the H.Dip and Postgrad in Cloud at the NCI, I've never read such nonsense.

Granted there is a high dropout rate. Part of it is because its free and people aren't out of pocket leaving. For most its a case that they don't want to do so much programing, for others, they just couldn't be bothered doing the work necessary to complete the course.
For those who want to do programing and do the extra work there are jobs. One friend off the H.Dip is now a Ruby programmer and doing well.
For others who dont want to spend our lives programing, there are other jobs in IT where having a knowledge of the various languages lets us talk to developers with knowledge of what they are talking about.

Having had 20 years moving trucks, I completed both courses and didn't need to spend 6 months looking at algorythms or data structures.

You will get out of the course as much as you put in. Its a steep learning curve but at level 8 what do you expect.The H.Dip is a conversion course to turn non-techies into techies. Having completed it, I can say it does exactly what it says on the tin.:D

Firstly, people drop out because before they go in they know nothing about software and don't know what they are studying or what they should focus on.

Secondly, you're correct about there being roles in software other than developer, and understanding how they work and being able to speak to developers is a great asset.

But my advice coming directly from many many software developers and employers in Software that I know and have spoken to at length. You're very foolish to say this is nonsense and it comes solely from a defensiveness, trying to defend your course so you don't feel useless, its not a rational response. Some course are in fact, just ****, regardless of how the people in them might build them up.

Its an unfortunate fact about life that education has become an industry like the rest of them and universities are just businesses.

A proper software developer will tell you that they learned 25% of what they know in their 3-4 year computer science degree and masters and 75% in their first and second job. That is because they had the solid fundamentals and the employer was comfortable putting in the resources to train them further, They were able therefore able to create methods and design systems due to their understandings of data structures and algorithms, not just manipulate tools in one particular framework like Ruby on Rails. Jumping into Ruby on Rails early like in these programmes without a solid grasp of fundamentals will leave you as a very limited developer.

The truth is though, that in these course they just don't have time, but anyone who wants to put the work in should do the fundamentals first, before diving into these courses.

I notice you are doing a masters and are not a working developer, right?

And fair play to your friend who got the job, (s)he was either in the lucky minority or put a lot of work in and had a natural flair for it.

I am in this course in NCI and it is very obvious the difference between the people who put in the effort and those who didn't. Last semester I was one who didn't, but I know what I have to learn now.

headbasher

jax700303 wrote: »

Hi Guys,

I have been offered a place in this course as well as in the FAS software developer, which one do you reckon is the best one?
and the one that will give me a fair chance to get into the IT industry, I have a background in hospitality and retail and have done the
FAS web page design course a few years back.

I have accepted a place on this course and also have a retail background, so i will be in a similar situation.

Any success stories from non-techies who have completed the web science level 8 course would be appreciated.

uck51js9zml2yt

headbasher wrote: »

I have accepted a place on this course and also have a retail background, so i will be in a similar situation.

Any success stories from non-techies who have completed the web science level 8 course would be appreciated.

I went from 20 years in transport planning to the H.dip and post grad....but just do a search and read what I've said about it:D

Stamply

My brother did the FÁS course in Java and was picked out of it for an internship and quickly got a job.

Previously he had flunked out of a science degree in Maynooth (Astro-Physics) and had a little programming in that. He fantasized about being a games developer and was around a lot of developer friends from college.

He finally sat down and started learning at home in his bedroom, quite intensively, and after a few months began the course in Finglas.

His development experience before that period was very limited. Now he is on 25k a year and quite comfortable, learning and moving up the ladder, applying for jobs at 50k, which he could easily be on next year.

But he had developer friends to guide him and started working way before starting the course. Everyone else in the course, he said, struggled, and I can confirm that myself, those who did the work beforehand and knew what they were getting in for were head and shoulders above the rest.

I think you have to have a certain amount of drive that allows you to drop a load of other stuff in your life for a focused period of 3-6 months and then you can steadily progress from there.

Good developers never stop studying either, it takes deep dedication. Software moves so fast that people get left behind if they don't understand the fundamentals.

Best of luck :-)

beg55

Hi,How is your new course going ? What is the drop out rate on it ? Are you still working ? What's next another 'springboard' course ?

........

Regards

.....

Privat

Hi All,

Just a quick one,
Can I retain my JB payment if I start an ICT Higher dip. Computing course PART TIME? Do I have to get some proof of the college that its part time, and give it to the DSP to retain the payment?