Student Experiences of the Leaving Certificate Applied Programme

PROGRESSION TO FURTHER STUDY AND TRAINING 137Just an evening thing maybe if anyway, you know, other than that now after thePLC course …Why did it turn you off them [other courses]?I just thought it was very hard like, I felt thick or something, I just couldn’t do itkind of, and then I had friends I met over there and I suppose they were in moreand they actually ended up passing like, they were all saying that they wouldn’tpass and they did like. So I kind of felt worse.Yeah, but maybe it was just that course wasn’t for you?I suppose, maybe something different, some, I don’t know what though, you know,sometimes you don’t know. (Alice, 22, completed LCA, home duties)Sandra was influenced by her friends who were continuing on to furthereducation after school. She too began a PLC course in Childcare but didnot complete the course. She did not enjoy it and similar to her feelingsabout LCA teachers, she felt the college teachers did not push studentsenough:I didn’t enjoy the college that I did go to, because I did childcare and then I wentto a college like and I didn’t want to do it then … the teachers that I had in thecollege, it was the same kind of, well do it if you want, if you don’t, leave it, whenyou needed someone to push you and say do it, like you have to do it or, and youwouldn’t have done it then like. (Sandra, 23, completed LCA, homeduties)Linda entered a course but did not complete it: she enrolled on to aFETAC course in travel and tourism but left after her first year as she didnot enjoy the course and felt she would need to complete at least four yearstraining in that area for it to be worthwhile:I finished in June I passed my first year and I just didn’t, I had no interest, I wasjust really wanted to stay at work then, I was working as a cashier in [name iftown] and I then I just stuck with that for a while.So you’ve no, the course didn’t do anything for you?No, no. I think that if I had finished, because I finished when I was seventeen, Ithink if I had my Leaving, I finished and I done well with that, I’d probably bestill in college now in my fourth or fifth year, you know after that, because traveland tourism wasn’t really, I knew it was a small course but I probably wouldn’tget anything out of it after two years after it so, I decided to leave it. (Linda, 21,completed LCA, student)She secured a job as a cashier in a large supermarket but had a baby andduring her maternity leave decided to leave the job as she was fearful thatwith a child she would never leave. With encouragement from her mother,brother and boyfriend she decided to go back to college to study full-time:I took my maternity leave and then, I just decided that I didn’t want to go back,I went in and had a chat with my boss and I told her that I’d do weekends for awhile, because I said I know it’s not something that I’m going to do for the rest ofmy life and I know if I stayed there I probably would have…Well when I waspregnant I was thinking, you know…I’d like something better than working incashier, I’ve nothing against it you know, I thought I’d probably get lazy and stayat home with a child and I just didn’t want that and then my brother and [nameof boyfriend] were just saying to me that, about doing courses and all of that, so I