Student Experiences of the Leaving Certificate Applied Programme

WORK EXPERIENCE IN THE LEAVING CERTIFICATE APPLIED 99He also felt that he got a taste of what it was like to work on a buildingsite in terms of how workers communicate with each other:It would have been my first time working, it was exciting like, the first time Iwent to a building site, the adrenaline, the craic. It was great craic altogether, theywere showing me how the real world works as well.What do you mean by that now?You know, young fellas coming into a site like, they get a bit of a doing at thestart, they make a fool of you and then you realise what it’s about like.(Graham, 22, completed LCA, apprentice)David’s experience of working in a factory also opened his eyes to thetype of environment that he could be working in:I enjoyed the woodwork, I enjoyed the tiling, but the factory place producing metalcomponents was bad. Yeah, it was, oh god, no I wouldn’t advise anyone to workthere, no, terrible. (David, 21, completed LCA, employed)Ronan also thought that he learned a lot from his placement with thearchitect:I actually got to do a lot of stuff with them, you know, they were very nice people,it was a big office with thirty people, so I got to work on a project with one ofthem, which was good, I had to build a scale model of a school, so, yeah I enjoyedthat. (Ronan, 25, completed LCA, apprentice)Differences also exist among students in the perceived quality of workexperience with some receiving valuable training (as above) and othersgaining very little from their placements. While Rebecca acknowledged thatshe had learned how to perform various tasks from her work experienceplacements, she did not think she had gained any specific skills from them:Working in the beauticians, I liked it because they were showing me how to dothings, the nursing home was good too, it was feeding all the old people, it’s veryhard like what they’ve to do, brushing their teeth and all.You actually learned something from them like?Yeah, and answering the phone and taking appointments.Do you think they taught you any new skills?No, I haven’t got any skills, I’ve nothing. (Rebecca, 21, dropped out ofLCA, home duties)Furthermore, Rebecca thought that the things she had learned in theLCA programme had nothing to do with any of the jobs she had worked insince leaving school (supermarket, working as a cleaner). Maurice also feltthat his experiences in the petrol station and in the supermarket and theoffice had no linkages with the subjects he was undertaking for the LCA.He did think, however, that he obtained certain skills such as typing andcomputer skills from participation in the programme rather than throughthe work experience component of LCA.