When filling out the CAO back in sixth year, something our younger siblings, cousins and friends have had to suffer over the last few months, there was always one thing in the back of our minds. What course will I pick, and what are the job prospects when I’ve finished it?
Several years later, students have to face that reality and apply for their first grown up job, or search for an INTRA placement. The Students’ Union has several ways to help DCU students in the search for that illusive dream job.
SU President Paul Doherty and Welfare Officer Neil Collins both praised DCU’s Uaneen module, which gives students credit for their extra-curricular activities and uses them for the final degree. As Neil says, “it shows how you’ve learned and developed outside the classroom.”
Paul also highlights that DCU teaches its students in the way that when they leave college they will become “job shapers” rather than “job takers”. This is where DCU graduates would take a job and mould it into their own, putting their own view on it. “This makes it the dream job they want. You look at a list which looks terrible on paper, but it’s all about what you make of it.”
He also spoke of the importance of clubs and socs. Seen as one of the most enjoyable aspects of college life, the skills you learn there will often come in useful in working life.
Conor McNally, a recent Journalism graduate, agrees with this. He wrote for The College View while studying and was also part of DCUfm’s Newswire team. “By doing the extra things in college, you instantly have an advantage over the people who didn’t.” Conor also credits DCUfm with giving him the confidence to apply for a job in his local radio station, which he feels helped him get to his current job in RTÉ’S news department.
As well as this, the clubs and socs a person gets involved with can teach them organisation skills, time management skills and event management can be used on CVs with great benefits.
Neil and Conor both feel the dream job exists if you do what you enjoy, but Neil does stress that it is still important to work hard at whatever job it is. “If you enjoy working hard at it, it can be a dream job then.”
Aoife Bennett
Leave a Reply