Wondering about advanced entry

catscratch

Hi lads, I just graduated w/ a lvl 7 degree in mathematical sciences from TU Dublin in November, couldn't finish up to lvl 8 because I was in poor health and honestly getting to the end of my lvl 7 was a slog anyway (had to repeat some exams at the end of yr 3) and I just wanted to get it over with lol.

I'm currently still stuck working in retail unfortunately because a lot of graduate entry level jobs require a lvl 8 - I've been thinking of doing a springboard course in software development next year, it's a lvl 7 diploma, part time, from CCT, and then going on to do advanced entry into a lvl 8 in a similar IT course (looking at Maynooth atm). I'm just looking for other perspectives - I have a couple questions if anyone would be willing to answer/offer some insight :)

• if I were to do the lvl 7 diploma from CCT, what do you think my odds of getting into year 4 of the lvl 8 are? A lot of the modules I did in my degree could be related to compsci - discrete maths, algorithms, etc, and I was in the computer lab a good bit in 1st/2nd yr - did some Python, Excel, MySQL, etc. I know I'm probably more likely to get into year 3 if anything but the idea of 3 more years of college feels quite daunting/exhausting and I guess I'd like to manage my expectations for that.
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• is this an insane path to take to get into a career in cs? I would really like to get a lvl 8 as I think having a degree opens up more doors which sounds ideal to me rn but I'm not completely opposed to alternatives if anyone has any ideas :) thanks!