Information Technology. How hard is the maths?

Magaa

Starting the IT course in the next few weeks and im wondering how hard is the maths in the course?

C1 in O level to the person who asked.

johnnykilo

The Maths probably will be challenging for you, but don't let that put you off. Once you go to all the classes and do the work you should be fine. There's extra tutorial classes in first year where you can ask the lecturer any question you may have etc...

I've spent many years in the college and it's very rare someone will fail a subject once they go to all the classes and do the work, even if they don't have a strong background in it. Everything is thought from the scratch, so you don't need to know anything going in.

Tom_Cruise

Does anyone know roughly the weekly schedule for this course? As in hours,days etc.

Im understand i will find out soon enough,but it would be nice to know as i have other commitments,i would like to see if i can fulfill them while studying.

callaway92

Tom_Cruise wrote: »

Does anyone know roughly the weekly schedule for this course? As in hours,days etc.

Im understand i will find out soon enough,but it would be nice to know as i have other commitments,i would like to see if i can fulfill them while studying.

25 hours a week. most full days...Friday either half day or off.

Tom_Cruise

callaway92 wrote: »

25 hours a week. most full days...Friday either half day or off.

Ok,thank you very much.

callaway92

No probs Tom, I'm a big fan.

Tom_Cruise

callaway92 wrote: »

No probs Tom, I'm a big fan.

Lol im a nice person really.Nice pic of me as well - i think it could be Photoshopped but its hard to tell.

Media999

Magaa wrote: »

Starting the IT course in the next few weeks and im wondering how hard is the maths in the course?

C1 in O level to the person who asked.

Same as myself with results. I did engineering before and that was extremely tough on Maths. Higher level maths i would say. yet i still got past 2 years.

Heres the thing

You would be surprised of your ability when your not in a class of half want to be there, half dont. College is a lot more Mature obviously and your learning something you want to do unlike most LC subjects.

Attend every single class. No excuses.
Take advantage of Youtube. Having it explained in 10 different ways usually make a huge difference.
Keep perfect notes. Dont be let down by your own laziness in taking down notes.

1000s of people pass every year with the same results as yourself. Youre no different.

Sully

As someone who struggled big time with Maths, I would agree with the above post. I would recommend in addition to the above getting grinds throughout the year and doing exam papers throughout the year. Depends who you get for Maths, some lecturers are very good at explaining it if your weak at it and its much easier to understand

lochdara

I am just starting year 2 in BSc IT (ord) in the evenings. I have a maths phobia.. I got a great teacher and attended most classes. Any i didnt attend he would supply notes. I reckon this was cause i informed him i would not be attended and he could see my efforts. First in class test was a 57, then and 82 and average after semeser one was a 70ish. I done lots of work and loads of papers and youtube where necessary. Semester 2 is statistics and isnt too bad but alot of writing involved. I passed that semester well too.

PM if ur really weak and i can point you to some of my resources.

Magaa

lochdara wrote: »

I am just starting year 2 in BSc IT (ord) in the evenings. I have a maths phobia.. I got a great teacher and attended most classes. Any i didnt attend he would supply notes. I reckon this was cause i informed him i would not be attended and he could see my efforts. First in class test was a 57, then and 82 and average after semeser one was a 70ish. I done lots of work and loads of papers and youtube where necessary. Semester 2 is statistics and isnt too bad but alot of writing involved. I passed that semester well too.

PM if ur really weak and i can point you to some of my resources.

How much of the course is Maths? And yes please about the resources.

Media999

Can someone if possible please point us in the direction of example questions or papers or something?

I believe its mostly Matrices, Vectors, Algebra and Statistics.

Might be good if everyone seen some examples.

Sully

All the papers I have are old enough, might be a little different now.

Tom_Cruise

Maybe someone who is in the course or has completed it can help me with something?

I went to the WIT open day earlier in the year and had the opportunity to talk to some students in various IT courses. Two agreed that this course has a bad reputation with-in the IT department,im not sure how true that is,maybe some one could elaborate? Maybe it was just their personal opinions.

callaway92

A friend of mine who completed it 6 years ago is working in Aldi at the mo and really hasn't had any job in relation to the course since finishing.

Personally I think Multimedia is a better course for work.

johnnykilo

Tom_Cruise wrote: »

Maybe someone who is in the course or has completed it can help me with something?

I went to the WIT open day earlier in the year and had the opportunity to talk to some students in various IT courses. Two agreed that this course has a bad reputation with-in the IT department,im not sure how true that is,maybe some one could elaborate? Maybe it was just their personal opinions.

I wouldn't say it has a bad name, but the IT Course and the Multimedia course are jack-of-all-trades kind of courses. I think everyone thinks their course isn't the best one. Perhaps they meant that courses like Applied Computing or Commercial Software Development which are mostly programming would have been more suited to them and have better job opportunities but if IT is what you want to do, then there's nothing wrong with the IT course.

lochdara

your going to learn the basics and work on them for year 1 and 2. Your not going to be configuring servers or running webservers for a long time. You'll start off probably talking about bits and bytes. Systems analysis will come into it as a subject too. That is interesting and tiring at the same time. Some stuff is outdated but i you have to know the basics to progress.

Media999

callaway92 wrote: »

A friend of mine who completed it 6 years ago is working in Aldi at the mo and really hasn't had any job in relation to the course since finishing.

Personally I think Multimedia is a better course for work.

Do you reckon if they where willing to move to Dublin etc.. they would get a job?

lochdara

i can tell you if you start on Java, that in year 2-3 you maybe prepared to take an Oracle associate exam (not compulsory). Its free to take the course content and you pay for the test. This is a result given by Oracle so as long with ur degree u will also get an official certificate from Oracle. Prepare to put in the work and hopefully u will get the benefits in the end. .

mr.noobie

The maths in IT isn't all that hard back in school i barely passed ordinary maths back in school, I struggled with it in 1st year but by the time I finished 2nd year i was getting 65% and up in my exams. The lecturers(bar one) are all excellent and if you attend properly you should have no problems. There is only maths for first 4 semesters too, none in 3rd year

lochdara

mr.noobie wrote: »

The maths in IT isn't all that hard back in school i barely passed ordinary maths back in school, I struggled with it in 1st year but by the time I finished 2nd year i was getting 65% and up in my exams. The lecturers(bar one) are all excellent and if you attend properly you should have no problems. There is only maths for first 4 semesters too, none in 3rd year

Starting year 2 myself on Tuesday

mr.noobie

lochdara wrote: »

Starting year 2 myself on Tuesday

I found year 2 a lot easier than 1st year, although I put that down to I had been out of education for a few years before starting the course and all the loud mouths had dropped out:p

lochdara

lochdara wrote: »

mr.noobie wrote: »

The maths in IT isn't all that hard back in school i barely passed ordinary maths back in school, I struggled with it in 1st year but by the time I finished 2nd year i was getting 65% and up in my exams. The lecturers(bar one) are all excellent and if you attend properly you should have no problems. There is only maths for first 4 semesters too, none in 3rd year

Starting year 2 myself on Tuesday

Who is that one lecturer

Musicman2000

So is there any work from studying Information Technology? or is it a waste of time

callaway92

Musicman2000 wrote: »

So is there any work from studying Information Technology? or is it a waste of time

Waste of time.

Multimedia/Software Systems Development/Entertainment Systems are all drastically better options, moreso the latter 2.

Tom_Cruise

callaway92 wrote: »

Waste of time.

Multimedia/Software Systems Development/Entertainment Systems are all drastically better options, moreso the latter 2.

I was looking into the IT course as well.

Could you tell me why you consider it to be a waste of time? Im just trying to get as much info on each course as i can.

callaway92

Tom_Cruise wrote: »

I was looking into the IT course as well.

Could you tell me why you consider it to be a waste of time? Im just trying to get as much info on each course as i can.

The other courses I listed are a lot LOT more broad.

Media999

In a nutshell the way ive heard from several people is it just teaches lots of everything and never hits an employable level of skill in any single language.

I also think it attracts a lot of people who are their because they heard "Theres jobs in IT". They put 2 and 2 together and got 5.

Latter 2 involve a lot of coding and are really good if your actually into coding.

Musicman2000

Media999 wrote: »

In a nutshell the way ive heard from several people is it just teaches lots of everything and never hits an employable level of skill in any single language.

I also think it attracts a lot of people who are their because they heard "Theres jobs in IT". They put 2 and 2 together and got 5.

Latter 2 involve a lot of coding and are really good if your actually into coding.

Thanks for the Info, so in a nutshell its really programming that the jobs are in. You have me thinking should i jump to something else while I have the chance. Because i really don't wont to do 3 years studying Information Technology and no hope of employment at the end of it.

Tom_Cruise

Thanks for the replies, i appreciate it.

Can i ask if anyone knows if any other languages apart from Java are taught in both IT and SSD?

Media999

HTML, CSS, XML, Ajax, PHP, MYSQL , Java, Javascript, JQuery in SSD. Maybe more i cant think of.

Projects you can incorporate anything else you want yourself also.

Sully

Media999 wrote: »

HTML, CSS, XML, Ajax, PHP, MYSQL , Java, Javascript, JQuery in SSD. Maybe more i cant think of.

Projects you can incorporate anything else you want yourself also.

Really? Only touched on surely?

Media999

Tom_Cruise wrote: »

Thanks for the replies, i appreciate it.

Can i ask if anyone knows if any other languages apart from Java are taught in both IT and SSD?

Java it seems in Semester 1. In second semester i see they do Web Design which would be the HTML CSS and Javascript. MYSQL is probably in there somewhere at some stage.

I see they changed the name of the IT part time to IT support. Maybe im looking into it too much but maybe people are going into support jobs in call centres and the likes rather than becoming programmers etc.

Media999

Sully wrote: »

Really? Only touched on surely?

How do you mean touched on? In first year i made a full ecommerce site designed from scratch using all the web programming languages mentioned as a project. People who failed didnt do so much.

Project is pretty much to create a website using all the Web languages except PHP as thats year 2 but you can use it if you want and not get marks for it.

java your given a system and told to copy it down to a tee. Cant really use your imagination for that. All your doing is copying but your definitely learning.

Sully

Media999 wrote: »

How do you mean touched on? In first year i made a full ecommerce site designed from scratch using all the web programming languages mentioned as a project. People who failed didnt do so much.

When you say 'full', what exactly did it do? And you used Java and PHP?

Media999

Sully wrote: »

When you say 'full', what exactly did it do? And you used Java and PHP?

Not java. In 1st year we used HTML, CSS, Javascript and JQuery. However i used PHP as it called for it.

Full as in from start to finish. Fully functioning and selling goods. Paypal shopping cart. Wouldnt have a massive stock system and only sells three types of good. Car parts so has a dynamic PHP page that changes when you select the model and type.

Obviously not Amazon big but no templates where used no off the shelf shopping carts like zencart / Wordpress or anything.

xirivella

Musicman2000 wrote: »

So is there any work from studying Information Technology? or is it a waste of time

I finished this course last year and all 6 of us found jobs within IT, all in different areas, software engineering, analysts etc.

I do agree that this course is very broad and if you think that you want a career in programming, then the SSD is a better option as there is a lot more coding involved in that course.

Media999

xirivella wrote: »

I finished this course last year and all 6 of us found jobs within IT, all in different areas, software engineering, analysts etc.

I do agree that this course is very broad and if you think that you want a career in programming, then the SSD is a better option as there is a lot more coding involved in that course.

Any jobs in Waterford do you mind me asking? Did you have to move / Emigrate?

xirivella

Media999 wrote: »

Any jobs in Waterford do you mind me asking? Did you have to move / Emigrate?

Not many in Waterford for people just out of college, most companies here want at least 2 years experience so its hard to get your foot in the door.

I was lucky and managed to get a job based on the work I had done in college.
Most of my other classmates moved to Dublin.

They are crying out for people in Dublin (and Cork to a lesser extent), so if you do well in the course and don't mind a job outside Waterford, you should have no problems picking something up in one of these places.

Media999

Yep just typical that. Might as well just go to Canada. If im moving im gonna move properly.

xirivella, where did you go for, and what did you do on work placement?

xirivella

Deleted User wrote: »

xirivella, where did you go for, and what did you do on work placement?

I along with a lot of other IT students didn't find any work placement.
You have to find work placement yourself and there wasn't to many companies taking people on when a did it a few years ago.
If you don't find work placement you have to do a certified course instead.
There are courses in Adobe and Java etc..
You have to do an exam at the end of the course which you have to pass.

Ah yes. Cheers.