Student Experiences of the Leaving Certificate Applied Programme

WORK EXPERIENCE IN THE LEAVING CERTIFICATE APPLIED 101Okay. So, it really opened your eyes kind of to what you wantedto do?Oh definitely, yeah, like, that’s something I would have never have thought ofdoing, like when you’re in school you just basically think of, you don’t think ofanything like that, like architecture, I could never imagine myself doing that.(Ronan, 25, completed LCA, apprentice)Mary outlined that when she was at school she wanted to work inspecial needs or with the elderly. She pointed out that the teachers hadrecommended this career option for her:They [the teachers] said I had the patience for either working with situations likethat [the elderly] or situations with kids. So I was kind of thinking about it,when more people were saying it to me I was kind of setting myself to it, which ismaybe what I needed, which was good in a way like. (Mary, 22, completedLCA, home duties)A considerable number of our respondents had no idea what theywanted to do after leaving school and so career sampling through workexperience in LCA was particularly beneficial for this group. Maryparticipated in four work experience placements and was surprised whenshe found that she enjoyed working as a teachers’ assistant at a primaryschool as she had started off with other occupations in mind:I loved working in the school, because I was a teacher’s assistant with the juniorand senior infants teacher it opened my eyes…I didn’t think I was kid friendlyand it opened my eyes to think maybe I want to do this. I didn’t like the office, Ithought I might have liked the role of the reception but that is not me. And thecar sales shop was just boring.Did you discover what you wanted to do?Yeah because I wouldn’t have known I was interested in kids if I hadn’t of wentto the school, it kind of opened a door that maybe if I don’t do my number oneoption that this would be a second option. (Mary, 22, completed LCA, homeduties)Sarah outlined that for many of her friends the work experience helpedthem to decide what they wanted to do and in some cases it allowed themto change their mind about career paths they were thinking of pursuing:But do you think that the work experience was a goodopportunity to try out different things?Yeah, definitely for me it was, I enjoyed it but I know that some girls had wantedto go into certain areas and when they actually went on the work experience, theyprobably were given the rough end of it, they could see the bad parts of the job andthe good parts of the job and in fact a lot of them actually changed their mind,said that they didn’t want it at all, gave them a better outlook then for what theyactually did want in the future. (Sarah, 21, completed LCA, employed)It was interesting to find that work experience during school can lead tolong-term career aspirations. Rebecca had experienced a number of jobsand training courses since she dropped out of the LCA programme.However, she still aspired to occupations that she experienced from herwork placement while in LCA: