Decisions??

GavDeMav · 13-05-2009 01:06AM #1

Hello peeps, first time using boards.ie

My problem is this.. I have inherited 20,000 euro, 5000 of which will be used to pay off loans, and money owed to my parents. I am currently a 21 year old out of work bricklayer (not yet finished my apprentice 3 years in) and work isn't looking hopeful. Ive been ranting and raving about wanting to go travelling, namely to australia the past 2 years. With that money I could go and have a great time and still save some. But I was also thinking of planning for the future as I wont be young and fit forever so I was looking into doing a course with pitman training for a diploma in Business and Web design. I have previous experience with web design I self taught myself when I was 12-15 years old, so its something I would warm to. This however could take 2 years and alot of money.. im trying to find out how much at the moment it wont be cheap thats all I know. Will I travel or do the course?? I left school after my junior cert because I wanted to start working in the building industry as many of us did because we seen the builders driving the nice cars and living in the big houses. As we all know thats shagged, and for the foreseeable future. Im worried if I go traveling I could lend up spending all the money (I inherited roughly the same amount around 2 years ago and stupidly blew it) so I want to put this money to good use. I should do the course when im young but if I go traveling I might be gone for 2-3 years and the urge to get it done could be gone as who knows what could happen in 3 years. Basically im confused and worried about what to do going by my past and present situation.

Any help and suggestions are welcome.

P.S I re-posted this as I think it didn't work the first time

Overheal · 13-05-2009 01:15AM

Economy as it is, this is the time to be earning a degree, learning new skills or get re-trained.

Do the course.

UpCork · 13-05-2009 08:08AM

I would say do the course. You are young and can go travelling afterwards.

Please though, make sure you put the money to good use. I know someone who came into some money and because they were young when they got it and didn't think it out properly, they didn't use it wisely and squandered it all.

ogriofa · 13-05-2009 08:41AM

Hi, I went to Australia at 28 - much better.
Do the course. Web design will always be needed.

Otis Driftwood · 13-05-2009 11:30AM

As the others have said,do the course mate.

You are only 21.Course takes 2 years.Hopefully we will be on the way out of the economic toilet by the time you finish it.

Work for a few years and then head off.

If you go now you will likely blow the money you have left and come back in 2years in the same spot you are in now except without the money to pay for the course.

Lots of time for traveling.

thethedev · 13-05-2009 12:04PM

If you only have a year left of the apprenticeship I'd hold out.
You know they can't get rid of you unless you have crap time-keeping or steal something??
Then do the course, and then travel with two qualification and work while you travel!
That would be the tits!

LegacyUser · 13-05-2009 03:59PM

call in to your local vec head office and ask for an appointment to see the adult guidance
counsellor (career guidance) this service is available free to all adults over 21 especially those unemployed but as far as i know it is available to anyone. you need to talk this over with the adult guidance counsellor. he or she should provide you with websites to do on line interest tests and find out about different courses. check out www.qualifax.ie or www.careersportal.ie or gotocollege.ie

LegacyUser · 13-05-2009 04:06PM

i sent the last posting, ment to say def finish out the apprenticeship if you can

also check out careerdirections.ie

GavDeMav · 13-05-2009 04:21PM

I just rang up the college in town, its 2600 for the diploma and if you do it full time it can be completed in 4-6 months! Plus if you are on the social (which I am) they pay 50-60% of the bill. I will go ahead and do the diploma now and I'll be finished before xmas.

GavDeMav · 13-05-2009 04:24PM

I'm a redundant apprentice at the moment. Along with a few of the lads I went to college with. No employer or no work and we cant complete our on-site phase 5. Its stupid I know. Im due to be qualified this march now I wont be. Thats why im going to get the Business and web-design diploma under my belt.

coadyj · 13-05-2009 04:29PM

GavDeMav wrote: »

Hello peeps, first time using boards.ie

My problem is this.. I have inherited 20,000 euro, 5000 of which will be used to pay off loans, and money owed to my parents. I am currently a 21 year old out of work bricklayer (not yet finished my apprentice 3 years in) and work isn't looking hopeful. Ive been ranting and raving about wanting to go travelling, namely to australia the past 2 years. With that money I could go and have a great time and still save some. But I was also thinking of planning for the future as I wont be young and fit forever so I was looking into doing a course with pitman training for a diploma in Business and Web design. I have previous experience with web design I self taught myself when I was 12-15 years old, so its something I would warm to. This however could take 2 years and alot of money.. im trying to find out how much at the moment it wont be cheap thats all I know. Will I travel or do the course?? I left school after my junior cert because I wanted to start working in the building industry as many of us did because we seen the builders driving the nice cars and living in the big houses. As we all know thats shagged, and for the foreseeable future. Im worried if I go traveling I could lend up spending all the money (I inherited roughly the same amount around 2 years ago and stupidly blew it) so I want to put this money to good use. I should do the course when im young but if I go traveling I might be gone for 2-3 years and the urge to get it done could be gone as who knows what could happen in 3 years. Basically im confused and worried about what to do going by my past and present situation.

Any help and suggestions are welcome.

P.S I re-posted this as I think it didn't work the first time

What exactly do you hope to achieve by doing the web design course? There are many out there more qualified then a diploma in web design who are looking for work, modern web design consists of a lot more the it did when you were young, do you know anything about servlets or jsp or asp? Nowadays you need to be able to program in order to do web design and all companies require you to have a degree before they even look at you. Go to Australia where work and do a working holiday, the economy is quite strong out there you should be able to find work easy enough.

Overheal · 13-05-2009 04:29PM

You can always do the course and design the interwebs while youre in Australia... 'mate.

GavDeMav · 13-05-2009 04:42PM

It will start the building blocks for more opportunities later in life not just for traveling. I understand things have changed regarding web design (I learned html and java script) and that I will have to get up on the latest craze. The web designing course I will be learning dream weaver. I want it before I go traveling so I have a better chance of landing more work than manual work because the building industry has slowed down everywhere. I have around 20 mates over in oz and they all say the building has slowed down to a near stand still.

GavDeMav · 13-05-2009 04:45PM

Overheal wrote: »

You can always do the course and design the interwebs while youre in Australia... 'mate.

Thats true overheal, but I would have to stay in the one spot for a prolonged amount of time and pay full wack for the course. Over here now I get 50-60% off the course and it lasts 4-6 months so im gonna go ahead and do it now.

coadyj · 13-05-2009 04:56PM

GavDeMav wrote: »

It will start the building blocks for more opportunities later in life not just for traveling. I understand things have changed regarding web design (I learned html and java script) and that I will have to get up on the latest craze. The web designing course I will be learning dream weaver. I want it before I go traveling so I have a better chance of landing more work than manual work because the building industry has slowed down everywhere. I have around 20 mates over in oz and they all say the building has slowed down to a near stand still.

No offence 'mate' but dreamweaver is nothing. It honesly would just be a fluff piece of paper, nobody in industry would care about it, you have 20 mates in oz and you're even considering it

Trust me you would be about a million times better off in oz, life is short

GavDeMav · 13-05-2009 05:00PM

coadyj wrote: »

No offence 'mate' but dreamweaver is nothing. It honesly would just be a fluff piece of paper, nobody in industry would care about it, you have 20 mates in oz and you're even considering it

Trust me you would be about a million times better off in oz, life is short

Are you working in the industry at the moment? I have to start at some point, I can learn more after dream weaver. I think it would be a good introduction, and im sure there must be some kind of work out there for those skills?? Otherwise why would they bother having the course and diploma?

coadyj · 13-05-2009 05:24PM

GavDeMav wrote: »

Are you working in the industry at the moment? I have to start at some point, I can learn more after dream weaver. I think it would be a good introduction, and im sure there must be some kind of work out there for those skills?? Otherwise why would they bother having the course and diploma?

Yes,

They put on these courses to make money from people like yourself

Dreamweaver is only a HTML editor, knowing only that without a back end language or artistic design is useless,

To put it in prospective you can hire someone to 100 pages with all logos and design elements for the sum total of .........$40

Joycey · 13-05-2009 06:42PM

coadyj wrote: »

Yes,

They put on these courses to make money from people like yourself

Dreamweaver is only a HTML editor, knowing only that without a back end language or artistic design is useless,

To put it in prospective you can hire someone to 100 pages with all logos and design elements for the sum total of .........$40

This is shocking advice. How is he gonna start off? At the bottom obviously.

Do the course man, done by Christmas and then decide what to do. If you do decide to go to Oz hang onto at least 5K of the mula in case things go wrong

coadyj · 13-05-2009 07:01PM

Joycey wrote: »

This is shocking advice. How is he gonna start off? At the bottom obviously.

Do the course man, done by Christmas and then decide what to do. If you do decide to go to Oz hang onto at least 5K of the mula in case things go wrong

The bottom is a degree in IT, and a high 2.1 at that. I'm only being realistic, if the OP does this course it will not lead to any job prospects in Ireland in the desired field.

I simply reminding him he has 20 friends in Oz and he would have a blast if he went over there, you're telling him to waist his money on a ****ty course, why don't tell him to do the ECDL and apply for a job as a deskside support agent.

Or tell him to do a course money management and then try to become a stock broker

or tell him to do a introduction to civil law and then go and sit the bar

or tell him to do a first aid course, then start practicing medicine.

Stop filling his head with nonsense, If you are not familiar with the field then don't comment.

cee_jay · 13-05-2009 10:25PM

Is it only Dreamweaver you are learning on this course? Tbh 2600 is a lot of money for that.
Have you checked if there are any courses in Web Programming etc in your local FAS? 6 years ago I did one in Limerick called Programming for the web, got quite a few different certificates out of it, would really recommend it.
I would recommend you stay at home at do some study - could you even go and do your leaving cert and then go back and do a degree course the year after?
From what I have heard things have really slowed down in Oz in the building trade as well - and from past experience, it was very very easy to blow 10000 euro travelling over there.

GavDeMav · 13-05-2009 11:50PM

coadyj wrote: »

Yes,

They put on these courses to make money from people like yourself

Dreamweaver is only a HTML editor, knowing only that without a back end language or artistic design is useless,

To put it in prospective you can hire someone to 100 pages with all logos and design elements for the sum total of .........$40

I appreciate your straight talking coadyj, what part of the industry do you work in you seem very knowledgeable??? What would you recommend for me to do if I want to get into web designing and business skills.

GavDeMav · 14-05-2009 12:01AM

cAr0l wrote: »

Is it only Dreamweaver you are learning on this course? Tbh 2600 is a lot of money for that.
Have you checked if there are any courses in Web Programming etc in your local FAS? 6 years ago I did one in Limerick called Programming for the web, got quite a few different certificates out of it, would really recommend it.
I would recommend you stay at home at do some study - could you even go and do your leaving cert and then go back and do a degree course the year after?
From what I have heard things have really slowed down in Oz in the building trade as well - and from past experience, it was very very easy to blow 10000 euro travelling over there.

Yeah I know and trust me I would blow it, but goddamn I would defo remember and enjoy it!

What was the course you done and did you need your leaving cert?

coadyj · 14-05-2009 01:37AM

GavDeMav wrote: »

I appreciate your straight talking coadyj, what part of the industry do you work in you seem very knowledgeable??? What would you recommend for me to do if I want to get into web designing and business skills.

I dont do web design anymore, I now work in back end technologies

There is a Microsoft certificate called the MCSD, this would give you a very decent level programming knowledge and asp.net, you would have no trouble finding work if you had one of these, its tricky though, You would need to find a program that thought it to you from scratch

Failing that you could do a beginners course in java programming through FAS, or you could give it a go yourself.

Learn some of the basics with this
http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/

Using this as you development enviroment:
http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/download.php?file=/technology/epp/downloads/release/ganymede/SR2/eclipse-jee-ganymede-SR2-win32.zip

When you get the grasp of this you could install a program called tomcat (http://tomcat.apache.org/download-55.cgi), which will let you run a web server on you pc, you can then start writing java servlets which is fairly common in the business world, would be good for web design jobs

I wont lie, its hard, and most people who start it tend to quite after the first few months. With the advent of web 2.0, nearly all business application would be written with a servlet or .net back end, the idea being that the application can reside on the server and not as an application installed on the computer.

However once you get to grips with java, c# is a very simple crossover, but you would be looking at about 2-3 of hard work to master it.

You should also familierise yourself with SQL which is a database language, you should at a basic level be able to create a table, insert information into it and the perform queries. there are two decent free systems you can use, MySQL(http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/) and Oracle (http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/index.html, student version) this is a good website to learn SQL http://www.w3schools.com/

You would also want to know how to use photoshop, css style sheets and have a good eye for design and of course html

css and html can also be learned at w3schools

I hope this information helps and is not too daunting, just to warn you though, being good at maths is a great start to being a good programmer

seanybiker · 14-05-2009 01:41AM

thethedev wrote: »

If you only have a year left of the apprenticeship I'd hold out.
You know they can't get rid of you unless you have crap time-keeping or steal something??
Then do the course, and then travel with two qualification and work while you travel!
That would be the tits!

+1
Great advice

Spon Farmer · 14-05-2009 04:31AM

travel. but tell with Oz.

everyone goes there.

see the world.

LegacyUser · 14-05-2009 06:40AM

Hi OP,

I just want to point out that loads of my mates are in oz and newzealand at the moment, they went last november to south america and now some in oz and others in newzealand the last few months and they are all having to come home because they cannot find work, all the lads and sparks, brikkies ets but tried getting jobs as bar staff also and nothing.

I also went to oz myself a few years ago, but for a month travelling, i think its a bit overrated myself the whole travelling thing but thats just my opinion, im a home bird, i have to say the best thing you could do is bank your money long term for a house in the future, pretend like you do not have it right now and save to go to oz or save for a course. There are plenty of good fas and vtos courses out there at the mo would you be thinking along these lines if you did not have this money.

20k is not that much and could easily be spent in dribs and drabs, but when my boyfriend needed 13k to buy his apt it was so hard to get, it is the down payment on a house, Im not sure who gave you the money but would the person like to see you invest it in something you could see rather than oz, i only say that because very recently i inherited a lot from my grandparents and i know they wanted every penny to go on my home and set me up for the future, I also had to do a lot of work on handling money because money does weird things to you, and it is a responsibility and life change that many people end up rejecting because they dont know how to handle it.

If you have the same attitude as before about it then you might squander it again, then in a few years time when you have a girlfriend and you might love your own place and really regret not keeping this cash for it, unless your going to inherit another 20k!

I just think bank it for your future, tie it up so you cant touch it and if there is a saving scheme where you can make a few quid all the better.

sunnyside · 14-05-2009 09:50AM

That course does seem extremely expensive even with the social welfare people paying half.

Coadyj's advice seems good. I just want to add that there are loads of people out there making plenty of money without 2.1 degrees in anything.

Decisions??

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