Guidance Counselling needed

ClassicE15

Guidance Counselling needed
Hey everyone,
I'm a 2nd year student in Mary Immaculate College studying to be a Primary School Teacher. I've always liked the thought of becoming a teacher so that my CAO choices fairly easy until I came out of my LC with an unexpected 580 points. I began to wonder whether I would be wasting a load of unbelievable opportunities by becoming a Primary Teacher with such high points. However I just went with my gut feeling and haven't looked back until now. Just 2 weeks into my 2nd year and I'm already feeling the stress. I'm uninterested in the course material, going to lectures is a massive struggle, and I'm beginning to doubt how rewarding this job will actually be. Every week I'm seeing paycuts and job losses in the news and I'm starting to wonder whether I'll even get a job when I qualify. I'm a male and everything, but its very unlikely that I'll get a First class honours degree. So I just want to know if when I do qualify there could be an easy pathway into doing Speech and Language Therapy in the future as a postgrad or something. I'm interested in the English Literacy side of my course and I think I would be very suited to becoming a Speech therapist. Any ideas would be very much appreciated

life after school

A good start would be dealing directly with the body representing speech and language.
email: info@iaslt.ie
http://www.iaslt.ie/ - you can find the rest of their contact details on the site.


Getting in touch directly with some therapists in the Irish Association of Speech and Language Therapists in Private Practice might give a clue as to going about finding your way into this field.

http://www.iasltpp.com/find.html

As for the struggle of going to your own particular lectures maybe you should also be looking around for lectures to go to that are more in keeping with your new interests in language therapy. After all there are many lectures to attend and usually it is not difficult to sit in on them.

Finally chat with your advisor or someone in student support services about the difficulties you are having with motivating yourself to go lectures. They may have some further thoughts on the matter.

Finally regarding jobs - fewer and fewer professions have the security we would all like. Showing a range of skills and experiences while in university will go a long way in supporting your attempts to secure work. The degree award is only a part of it.

Good luck.

Cailin CoisFarraige

There is a postgraduate course in UL for Speech and Language Therapy. I honestly don't know too much about it but there's lots of information on www.ul.ie

As a recently graduated B.Ed. from Mary I, I really want to say that first semester of 2nd year is incredibly hard for everyone. The workload and pressure can be very tough, the material can be boring, and you would certainly not be the first person to question what you're doing there. It doesn't help that there is such a long gap between first and second year teaching practices. Try to remember that there is a big difference between the theory of education and the reality of the classroom. I found a lot of the course modules very dull, but I'm out in schools now and loving it.

Like you, I did very well in my Leaving Cert. I've always wanted to be a teacher but there seemed to be an expectation that I should be doing something "more" just because I got high points. You were right to go with your gut. The paycuts at the minute are pretty depressing, but no job is secure, it's teacher's wages this year, it'll be someone else's the next. Either way you're well into the course now so I'd say stick with it. Whatever you decide to do afterwards, a postgrad is the easiest way to a new career.