From Leaving CertiFiCate to Leaving SChooL a Longitudinal Study ...

Guidance and Decision-Making in Sixth Year 139
Well it kind of states the obvious like.
It kind of points out what you knew already. (Fig Lane, coed school,
middle-class intake)
In addition to the guidance classes and aptitude tests, many schools facilitated
access to guest speakers or college open days as part of the
overall guidance programme.
Guests or Visiting Speakers
Students were positive about visiting speakers who came to the school to
talk to them about post-school education courses or careers:
They come in like, it was really good, there’s only been a few open
days but loads of people come in and talk about...
It’s like people come to talk about agricultural science or like law or
nursing or the Guard, the Guard business, the Cadets or … Army.
(Belmore Street, girls’ school, mixed intake)
Students could then follow up on the information they received with
their guidance counsellor:
And if you are interested you go to those talks.
Or if you like if you ask Ms. [Guidance Counsellor] she’ll go ‘well
I’ll do my best to try get someone in to talk to you’.
Yeah, she’s really good like that. If you said like, listen, I haven’t
known much about nursing, she could try and get … a nurse to come
in and talk to you about it. (Belmore Street, girls’ school, mixed intake)
When asked about their decision-making process, students felt that some
of the guest speakers were helpful in providing information about certain
college courses and careers:
We had a speaker in for the hotel management course and … they’d
call out saying this will be on at a certain time and you’d go to the
room. I went to the hotel management talks and I wasn’t even putting
it down but now I have it down like after that so I thought it was
good anyway. (Fig Lane, coed school, middle-class intake)