Springboard course in Software Development

Hi OP,

I was in a similar situation to you a few years back. I went to Maynooth to do the HDip in SE.

It is absolutely worthwhile for anybody. And you can certainly start a brilliant career with the HDip. So go for it. Let me give you some golden rules though:

1. Work your ass off. Anything less than a 1st is worthless. Luckily, the nature of the course is more or less (excuse the pun) binary. I.e answers are right or wrong.

2. Similar to point 1. Don't fall behind. It's literally impossible to catch up.

3. You'll have a module or two called data structures and algorithms or something like that. Without a doubt the most important module. Super difficult, but once you invest the time, it will click and most other concepts will fall into place.

In terms of career prospects, your first position will be small enough pay, but if you'll also see huge incremental jumps in your salary every time you switch jobs, my own path was 27-45-72-80 within 3 years.

Software development is exciting, and it's definitely worth getting into if you want to. It isn't however something that one can get into without putting in solid groundwork beforehand. But my advice is go for it