Yesterday the College held an Open Day for Leaving Certificate students and it was my turn and pleasure to be present at the School of Computing stand. Apart from the fact that the age gap between the average 18 year old student and me is now up to 38 years, I very much enjoyed chatting to the young prospective students.
Image Source: GameSpace.net. |
Almost every single student that came to chat with me at the stand enquiring about our degrees in Computing wanted to specialize in gaming. They showed great enthusiasm for gaming and were mostly already keen gamers (I was beside a virtual reality stand that was very popular). I pointed out to them all that they will be graduating in 2020 and that a lot can change between now and then. This got me thinking that it is very difficult to advise students about course choices for a career that will not start for another five years. All I can do is tell them what's hot right now (analytics and cloud computing), that they may be working for companies that don't exist yet, doing jobs that don't exist yet either, and using technologies that haven't been invented yet. Leaving Cert students are bombarded with options - let's all hope that they make the right choices for themselves and that their chosen course will lead to a fruitful experience in College and a career that will make them productive and happy.
Next Open Day: Saturday 23rd January, 2016 (10:00 - 13:00) - see www.ncirl.ie for details.
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