My TY

Welcome to our weekly column in which we let students write about what they're getting up to. The idea is simple: send us 500-600 words about some aspect of your transition year. We'll publish the best and most unusual ones. E-mail your article, with your name, your school and a contact phone number, to Gráinne Faller (gfaller@irish-times.ie). This week Sarah Hallahan, who has just started fifth year at Coláiste Bríde in Wexford, looks back on her TY.

When I started transition year I thought: "Nine months of dossing. Bliss." I'll admit I was wrong. Fourth year was hectic, but in a good way. Our main projects were Young Social Innovators, a mini-company and our Young Designers of the Year Awards. We also did work experience, went on a couple of foreign and day trips, and did more than enough workshops.

If I'm honest, everyone disliked doing YSI. It was the project that involved most of our time and effort. We were split into three groups, each of which had to do something about a social issue that affected our community. We tried to tackle isolation of the elderly, juvenile delinquency and, with Amnesty International, human rights. We didn't make the biggest impact, but nobody can say we didn't try. YSI had its perks, though. We had a great time at the organisation's Open Forum, in Waterford, and the two days we spent showcasing our projects at Citywest, in Dublin, were a great reward for our hard work.

In my eyes, the mini-company was our easiest major project. It was up to us what we decided to sell - and it was up to us to make money. We weren't hounded to get work done, the way we were in YSI and the design awards. At the end of the year the mini-company I was involved in came away with a couple of hundred euro profit. We each got about €50, which was good considering we were selling beads on elastic string and calling it jewellery.

The Young Designers of the Year Awards were something else. The Form and Fusion design competition that previous years had taken part in had finished by the time I did transition year, which I was devastated about. Our art teachers, who were also disappointed, decided we would do our own version of the competition, displaying our creations in a fashion show for our family and friends.

For the first half of the year we came up with the ideas for our dresses and started constructing them, but we didn't get very far. As the fashion show got closer, we started to use every available class to work on our dresses.

We made our deadline by the skin of our teeth, and the fashion show went well. Each dress had a theme and was made from materials such as birthday cards, bottle caps, eyeglasses and even tea bags. I am very proud that the dress I was involved with won.

Transition year also helped me to come out of myself a lot. I used to be quite shy; now I find myself just talking to people. The year was worth all of the work, time and effort.