Springboard courses. Free college courses sponsored by the Irish Government

Away With The Fairies

Anybody on the Covid19 payment? What proof are you using for springboard eligibility?

Esse85

the whole year inn wrote: »

Alot of negativity on this forum!

DP

Esse85

the whole year inn wrote: »

Alot of negativity on this forum!

It's an Irish forum, what do you expect?

FFVII

the whole year inn wrote: »

Alot of negativity on this forum!

This sort of comment is really starting to piss me off.

Get off those insta quote pages.

theboss80

Can you do more than one course? As in the two I am looking at are both part time and online

AngryLips

the whole year inn wrote: »

Alot of negativity on this forum!

Sorry, maybe I should have gone into more detail, but I'm speaking from experience as someone in that role who is not qualified. If you get into a big company with plenty of opportunities elsewhere, coming from a finance background is always a strong position to move into other areas ...but apart from that, it's quite limiting to be in that field without either an accountancy qualification or the intention to study further along those lines.

Officer Giggles

theboss80 wrote: »

Can you do more than one course? As in the two I am looking at are both part time and online

No you can only do one course per academic year

This is it

theboss80 wrote: »

Can you do more than one course? As in the two I am looking at are both part time and online

I doubt it's possible. They're part time to allow you take up full time employment should the opportunity arise. Not ideal if someone looking to do a course and doesn't get a place when you've someone else doing two. And then they're about €4-5k a pop from the ones I've looked at. It's a government initiative so I'm sure they'll want it spread out

tolow

Heard back from the NIBRT on one of the courses I applied for and sent in relevant docs. What does the 10% usually equate to? €1200 for the course I'm applying for ran by TU Dublin and NIBRT. It's a L9 post grad diploma with 60 credits. The masters course that the diploma seems to be linked to is €6000.

Kamu

tolow wrote: »

Heard back from the NIBRT on one of the courses I applied for and sent in relevant docs. What does the 10% usually equate to? €1200 for the course I'm applying for ran by TU Dublin and NIBRT. It's a L9 post grad diploma with 60 credits. The masters course that the diploma seems to be linked to is €6000.

Is the one you're looking at over two years? Perhaps they're charging your €600 per year of course?

CBear1993

tolow wrote: »

Heard back from the NIBRT on one of the courses I applied for and sent in relevant docs. What does the 10% usually equate to? €1200 for the course I'm applying for ran by TU Dublin and NIBRT. It's a L9 post grad diploma with 60 credits. The masters course that the diploma seems to be linked to is €6000.

If you aren’t already working in pharma will these courses just essentially get you in the door to be a shift worker in their labs/plants?

twentysomething

I applied for a professional diploma in UCD that's due to start in a couple of weeks. Closing date is today, so I'm assuming they'll notify quite quickly!

Illium

Has anybody done a course with Innopharma education? Just looking for some feedback. Thanks.

CBear1993

Illium wrote: »

Has anybody done a course with Innopharma education? Just looking for some feedback. Thanks.

You can be sure of one thing: they'll absolutely hound you. I just applied last year and told them I wasn't following through. I must have got rang by 3 different innopharma ladies last summer right up until september when the courses were to start.

Esse85

CBear1993 wrote: »

You can be sure of one thing: they'll absolutely hound you. I just applied last year and told them I wasn't following through. I must have got rang by 3 different innopharma ladies last summer right up until september when the courses were to start.

They are looking for sales at the end of the day, and if you showed some interest in the course you were a qualified prospect.

I'm sure colleges love get people via springboard as the government pay the fees.

Kamu

Esse85 wrote: »

They are looking for sales at the end of the day, and if you showed some interest in the course you were a qualified prospect.

I'm sure colleges love get people via springboard as the government pay the fees.

It's guaranteed money for them, they can be sure that the students won't need financial help, they will be paid on time, and even if the student drops out, they'll keep the 10% fee.

tolow

CBear1993 wrote: »

If you aren’t already working in pharma will these courses just essentially get you in the door to be a shift worker in their labs/plants?

Some of the IT Sligo and NIBRT ones are useful to get into the manufacturing side of the biopharmaceutical industry. If you've already a science degree you should pick up a QC lab job handy enough. The biggest help seems to be for people who done work experience as part of their undergrad. They will walk into a QC job or entry level manufacturing roles.

I have been working in QC for the last few years but want to do the Validation Technology Post grad diploma to try move into the validation side of things.

CBear1993

tolow wrote: »

Some of the IT Sligo and NIBRT ones are useful to get into the manufacturing side of the biopharmaceutical industry. If you've already a science degree you should pick up a QC lab job handy enough. The biggest help seems to be for people who done work experience as part of their undergrad. They will walk into a QC job or entry level manufacturing roles.

I have been working in QC for the last few years but want to do the Validation Technology Post grad diploma to try move into the validation side of things.

How do you generally find it and what's the pay like at entry level?

Girlfriend's sister is QA/QC at manager level and she finds it incredibly repetitive (didn't want to use boring as it's a lazy descriptive).

tolow

CBear1993 wrote: »

How do you generally find it and what's the pay like at entry level?

Girlfriend's sister is QA/QC at manager level and she finds it incredibly repetitive (didn't want to use boring as it's a lazy descriptive).

QC lab work is quite boring after a couple of years to be honest. If you do like lab work I'd say being involved in a development lab would probably be a better option and less repetitive.

Entry level QC roles seem to be getting close to €40k now from what I have heard from recent graduates. When i started 6 years ago now the pay started at €30k. I left the lab work last year and work in a more IT lab support role now.

There is good money to be made though moving into validation roles and especially as a contractor. €45 per hour for cleaning validation engineers would be normal enough with not a whole lot of experience. This is what I would like to move towards after the course.

py

How are people's applications progressing at this stage? Of the four courses I've applied to, just one has actually downloaded my application.

This is it

py wrote: »

How are people's applications progressing at this stage? Of the four courses I've applied to, just one has actually downloaded my application.

Applied for 3. One accepted (an IT college), another (private college) is reviewing my application and I'll know in the next week or so. They requested documents, etc. And the last (TUI) hasn't downloaded the application yet. It's the second I'm most interested in and I think I'll get it so I'll cancel the other two if I'm accepted.

CBear1993

Posted this on another thread, might be useful for anyone considering what courses to take on

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2058084440&page=12

CBear1993

Anyone competed -

L9 Postgraduate Certificate in BIM and Lean Construction Management through IT Sligo (1 year)
https://www.itsligo.ie/courses/certificate-bim-lean-construction-management-online/

OR

L9 Postgraduate Certificate in BIM Technologies through TU Dublin (1 year)
https://springboardcourses.ie/details/8270

??

SSr0

py wrote: »

How are people's applications progressing at this stage? Of the four courses I've applied to, just one has actually downloaded my application.

How can you tell if they have downloaded your application?

This is it

SSr0 wrote: »

How can you tell if they have downloaded your application?

Log in to the website and click the hamburger button on the right, see attached.

SSr0

This is it wrote: »

Log in to the website and click the hamburger button on the right, see attached.

Thanks a million. I take it that they have downloaded my application so?

This is it

Don't think so unfortunately, it should say in the comments section "Application downloaded as a PDF document." Or Word Document. I've one of each on an application

py

I also received an email earlier stating that my application was now "pending". I'm up to 3 out of 4 applications pending now.

rev2.0

Received & accepted an offer of a place on the course i applied for (an IT College) Wasn't expecting to hear anything so quick

FrDougal

Hi Guys,

In December 2018, I was advised by a course provider that Springboard will only pay your fee for an additional course if the NFQ level of that course is greater than that of the course that you previously attended.

If you wish to do multiple courses for free, you will need to complete them in ascending order of NFQ level.

(The NFQ level is listed in the bottom left hand corner of course description. Advise is as of December 2018. I am late to join this thread. Apologies if already covered)