Question
My son is growing more anxious about the fact that he only has two weeks to select his CAO courses choices in time for the February 1st deadline. He has no idea yet what job or sector he wants to work in after college. How real is this cut-off point?
Answer
Firstly, the February 1st initial deadline for CAO course choices is, in many ways, an administrative carryover from a bygone era when students posted off their CAO course choices. It gave the CAO office several months to input tens of thousands of data points into their computer system by hand.
Today students input their own data, and the February 1st date is retained mostly for the convenience of guidance counsellors in schools, who use it as a trigger to get students to submit their initial list of courses before turning their attention to their mocks in February.
Apart from a small number of restricted application courses involving portfolios and interviews/presentations, listed in this column two weeks ago, that are typically timed for March/April, any applicant can change their course choices up to 5pm on July 1st.
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More than 90 per cent of Leaving Cert applicants make changes to their course choices in May/June each year. So, your son has nothing to fear in terms of the February 1st course choice “deadline”.
As to his concern relating to the economic sector he works in after college, this is in many ways a false perception of the modern economy. AI, among other forces, is transforming the nature of work. Any occupation involving the processing or analysis of data will be unrecognisable by the time your son completes third-level studies.
As I know from my own work with young people as an educator and guidance counsellor, they – like the rest of us – change their perspective on life issues as daily experiences shape their perspective on occupational options.
Like many guidance counsellors, I administer the interest profiler resource freely available on the careersportal.ie website. Chances are he was directed to complete the assessment of interests by his guidance counsellor or a similar instrument during transition year in a careers class. Ask your son to take it again; it is fascinating how a student’s interests and course preferences change on an ongoing basis through the daily interaction we all undergo by simply living.
Once he has a better sense of where his interests and passions lie, he can proceed to view the matching occupations and courses on offer at further education or CAO levels.
He should also reflect on whether he is suited to learning in a classroom/lecture theatre or is more a hands-on learner. There is a multiplicity of options on offer for every interest type.
Check out what the various interest tests identify on offer within the CAO application process (all listed on Qualifax.ie), the recently launched tertiary degree programmes (nto.ie), the post-Leaving Cert courses in his local further education college and the multiplicity of opportunities on offer through the 80-plus apprenticeships of offer through Solas (apprenticeship.ie).
And remember, there is no need to fret: he has months to go before he must select his final CAO course options.
