My daughter has chosen her CAO course options, but is in a panic and says she still isn’t sure she made the right choice. She’s done all the research and talked to her guidance counsellor, but is still unsure. I’m not sure how to help guide her to make the right decision.
No more than in our personal lives and relationships, the key to succeeding in a particular course is having a genuine passion for the content. Successful completion to graduation is also based on full awareness of the challenges ahead and proper planning for these.
You say she has met her guidance counsellor and has researched her choices. She will doubtless still be processing all of this while dealing subconsciously with her perception of what you and her peer group make of her choices.
So what can you do to ensure she eventually lands in a course that suits her interests, aptitudes and ability?
My daughter is in a panic over CAO course selections. How can I guide her in the right direction?
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Careersportal.ie has an excellent “interest profiler”, which your daughter can take at any stage. It is a self-administered test of her interests and will generate a chart that shows her strength of interest across all career sectors.
If she has identified a specific discipline and wants to explore every course offered by colleges and their current CAO points requirements, she can proceed to Qualifax.ie and enter that course title in the search field. That simple exercise will instantly provide her with every course in which that word is either in the title or prospectus.
She can proceed to explore Further Education (FE) courses in that field. One of these could give her a deeper insight into what a full level-eight degree in the subject would involve. If successful, this could give her entry into her chosen course in a year’s time outside of the CAO round-one offer process. Or, of course, she could reapply to the CAO in the normal way.
If she finds that the discipline she has identified requires points beyond her capacity, and that there does not seem to be a FE backdoor entry route, she could explore new “tertiary degree” options on offer outside the CAO process (nto.ie).
[ With extra college places, will CAO points fall for high-points courses like medicine and dentistry? ]
Alternatively, she might explore the 1,000-plus degree options taught through English in other European countries which EU citizens are freely entitled to apply for. CAO points scores are not part of the application process and places in courses such as physiotherapy and psychology – to name but two – attract large numbers of Irish students. See Eunicas.ie for more information.
Most importantly, ensure your daughter reads the full curricular content of any courses she is considering in advance. This always gives a sense of what kind of day-to-day learning is involved.
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