She had a yen to travel, and Bordeaux was beckoning. She had a desire to change, to learn new things, but mostly she wanted to go to visit France. And so it came to pass.

After weighing the options, Lillian Ahern made a decision to move from her old job. She signed up to do a two-year PLC course in Cork College of Commerce.

From Fairhill on the north side of Cork city, Ahern had worked in the same building on Model Farm Road, albeit with three different companies, for a total of eight years.

She worked in the electronics industry, in particular repairing printed circuit boards, carrying out quality checks and generally being part of a team that assembled "the mouse", that little item which accompanies all personal computers. It was interesting but the time had come to change.

"I wanted to change from what I was doing, to do something different rather than having the one place on my cv. I felt if I didn't do it now I'd never do it."

She took the plunge two years ago, registering with Cork College of Commerce to do a PLC course in applied languages with information technology. Her interest in French was central to her interest in the course. Of course, she took French as her language option.

"I was afraid at first about French but I managed fine, quite well. It's amazing what you remember and it was an intensive language course." Her timetable in first year included 13 language classes a week.

There were 20 students on the course - including new Leaving Cert graduates and some mature students like herself. At the start they were all encouraged to write away to different hotels in order to organise a work placement for themselves.

Ahern went to the Holiday Inn hotel in Bordeaux.

"They were very kind. My French improved immensely. You have to be more independent. I was working in the reception area of the hotel, greeting customers, handling bookings on their computer system. By the last month I was working on my own at reception."

She graduated this year, with her certificate awarded by the National Council for Vocational Awards.

Working in the hotel in Bordeaux as part of her course in first year was possibly the most vivid and interesting experience she had. Today her French is fluent, and she uses the language quite a bit in her office on Cork's South Mall.

At present, Ahern works in Local Eyes, a company which provides web support to a range of companies and localises web pages.

"I'm only here four weeks," she explains. "It's very challenging and it involves a lot of detail. I'm using a lot of the information that I learned at college."

Customer services formed a key part of the course and learning how "to deal with people on the phone, how to handle complaints, how to be to be pro-active, and solve problems and get a result" were just some of the skills she learned. "They are invaluable," she says.

Becoming familiar with e-mail and a number of other Internet skills were equally important on the course.

She uses French on the phone. There will also be an option to travel in the future, as the company has offices across Europe.

Ahern is a project co-ordinator at Local Eyes, working on different projects, dealing with different websites that come in from different countries to be "localised".

Coming up to her Leaving Cert, she was interested in a variety of things, including business studies and accounting. But, being pragmatic, she decided to study telecommunications. She completed a two-year certificate course in telecommunications technology - a City and Guilds-awarded programme at Cork Institute of Technology - after her Leaving Cert in 1989. She went into an area where jobs were plentiful and her future seemed set. Now a new avenue has opened up and Ahern is delighted.