NCI Blog

National College of Ireland is, once again, ranked best for jobs in the Sunday Times annual league tables, The Good University Guide. The college’s award-winning Careers Development and Employability Service is second-to-none, with CV advice being a much utilised facility. Caroline Kennedy, Careers Officer with National College of Ireland (pictured centre, above, with the rest of the Careers Team) has the following advice for creating a CV: “Your CV is your personal sales brochure and should be tailored to the requirements of the position you are applying for. It is one of the most important documents you will write in your professional life and has only one purpose – to get you an interview.”

Vice Dean of NCI's School of Computing, Paul Stynes, offers up his tops tips for college students. 1. Attend your lectures You will probably be tired of people saying this but it’s worth repeating: college life is very different to school. The emphasis is on independent learning – which means that your lecturers won’t be on your back in the same way that your parents or teachers might have been. This makes it very tempting to miss the odd lecture but I can’t emphasise enough that for most students, attendance is fundamental to academic success. I will often cover areas that aren’t in the textbooks and go into topics in much greater depth. I will also give advice on assignments, on studying and on exams which will help you to successfully get a degree. I’ve definitely noted a correlation between the students who fail and the students who don’t turn up for their lectures.

An obvious and often underrated means of learning is directly through experience.

NCI Lecturer in Computing, Dr Eugene O’Loughlin, has some advice for his younger self as he starts his college journey.

Thinking about starting or going back to college? Or doing an evening course? September marks the beginning of a new academic cycle, and it’s not just the kids that are preparing themselves for the classroom.

Dr Josephine Bleach, of the Early Learning Initiative* at NCI, offers these suggestions for making the most of the last weekend of the summer holidays. It is that time of year again. All the schools are back on Monday. Pens, pencils, copies, books and uniforms are flying out of shops as if there is no tomorrow. Just take a deep breath. Step back from it all and enjoy the last weekend of summer.

Dr. Leo Casey, Director of NCI's Centre for Research and Innovation in Learning and Teaching, shares his thoughts on living and learning.

Finding student accommodation in Dublin can be stressful – especially if it’s your first time around. With CAO offers just a few weeks away, the reported student accommodation crisis means that some students are encountering difficulties in finding a place to live. For first years and their families in particular, this is an unwanted additional worry at a time of uncertainty and change. That’s why National College of Ireland reserves a portion of on-campus accommodation for our first year students – despite the rest of our rooms booking out within two hours of applications being opened.

An education at National College of Ireland provides many benefits, but not even we realised that marital bliss would be one of them.

Accounting student Laura crowned first Irish Miss Personality It’s an exciting summer for NCI accountancy student Laura McCormack, who has been crowned Ireland’s first Miss Personality and will go straight into the Miss Ireland finals.