Consider career options when choosing your course, says business leader
College and career choices: You may not get the course you want but you may do a postgraduate specialising in the area you want to get into. Picture: iStock
Leaving Cert students should think about the type of career they would like to have in eight or 10 years and look at the varied career paths a degree course can give them.
That’s the advice from Graham Healy, a partner with Deloitte and a member of the Business Information Systems (BIS) advisory board at University College Cork (UCC).
The practical four-year course combines business subjects with information technology.
“It’s natural for someone at 18 years of age to think the Leaving Cert is the be all and end all,” Mr Healy said. “There are many different career and life pathways ahead of you. I think people feel there is a points race and if you achieve a certain amount of points, then you should do a certain type of course.
“For me, a Leaving Cert student should think about what you are passionate about, what subjects you like doing in school, why do you like doing them, and what kind of career would you like in the future be it in the technology space, the business space, the engineering space.
“After four years of college, or more, you are going to spend most of your life in the workforce, what are you going to want to wake up every morning and do?”
There are many pathways to university as well, he added.
“You may not get the course you want but you may do a postgraduate specialising in the area you want to get into.”
Ireland has a very “dynamic” market, Mr Healy said. “From the point of view of a course like business information systems, you could go down a very technical route, you could go down a very business route or you could go somewhere in between.
“Technology is pervasive at the moment, no matter what industry you go into you are going to be in contact with technology, whether that’s consumables, retail, life sciences or so forth.”
Employers like Deloitte are always looking for specific key skills from graduates, he added.
“The first is critical thinking, the ability to deal with ambiguity and be able to problem solve and logically go through a client set of issues,” he said. “The second skill is agility or flexibility. The pace of technology is just getting faster and faster, therefore it's to be willing to move into different industries and different roles.
“The third part of it is curiosity and an interest in learning. The technology sector and the consulting sector you are constantly learning, constantly evolving your capabilities.”
