Student profile ‘I spoke to people on courses and found out what they thought of them’

Shaun Henson: final year commerce student NUIG

Shaun Henson (24) was very unsure of what he wanted to do when he started the Leaving Cert cycle. All his friends were talking about college, so he thought he may as well follow suit. But he felt a lot of pressure when everyone in his class seemed to have a plan for the future and he had no idea what he wanted to do.

“I just couldn’t make up my mind at all,” he says. “I had arts, English, IT, business and accounting all in my head.

“A few weeks before the CAO I started to gather some insights on each of them. I spoke to people on the courses and found out what they thought of them.

“ I ruled out arts because I didn’t like the idea of not having a definite professional route at the end of it. I was also told, for example, studying English was really different at third level, and even though I liked it in school that put me off.

“I also ruled out IT. Everyone was saying there were great jobs in it, but when I looked into coding it didn’t seem like something I’d be interested in enough to sustain me for a few years.”

Henson also spent time looking through the universities’ brochures and examining in detail what modules were taught on courses. When he saw what was on offer with NUIG’s commerce degree he felt it was a more suitable track than the others.

“I won’t say I was clear-minded and set for commerce but it was the closest course I could see myself in. I found out I could do marketing in my final year stream and this is what excited me the most. I spoke to friends who were older than me and who had got into marketing to see what they had to say about it. I liked what I heard, and that helped me make up my mind.

“Now I’m in my final year and it was definitely the right path. I actually ended up working on contract with Diageo and that gave me the focus that I want to definitely want to do marketing, that’s the main goal.

“I’m now looking for suitable programmes for when I graduate in May. For anyone who is unsure what to put down on the CAO, try go to some introduction and induction days held for second-level students – that will give you a real feel for what the course is like.”