It’s being reported this morning that the points requirements for entry to science course, including computing, have risen this year. This is a reversal of a trend that was happening.
Kids who are finishing secondary (high) school sit a series (usually 7) of government run and scored exams. The better their grade, the more points each exam gives. Their top 6 scores are summed and the total is used to compare/contrast them with other applications to courses. In the Spring, they submit a form to the CAO with an ordering of their preferred course/college placements. The top X students for each course in each college are sent out offers in the first round (like an NFL draft). More popular subjects tend to see an increase each year. For quite some time, construction and business courses saw huge spikes. Computer science was popular and increasing in the 90’s but the IT recession of 2000-2002 put an end to that.
The construction crash that started in 2007 (before the world recession) saw huge increases in unemployment in the construction sector. The banks overplayed their hand and gave out money, sometimes without even doing paperwork, to the construction firms collapsed. The increased cost of interbank trading on 2008 made things worse. The result: construction is dead in Ireland (with an oversupply of office space and housing to keep us going to the middle of the century) and the finance business is laying off staff every day. Obviously the desired careers of kids entering the college system will follow (our colleges/universities are career choice driven rather than some journey of self exploration as seen on American TV).
My advice to kids doing IT courses: Focus on software development and project management. Business Intelligence might not sound interesting but it is a hot topic, even during a recession … maybe even more so in a recession. Development pays better and there is way more work in it than in IT infrastructure work. There has been a shortage of BI developers for some time and that continues. There is a niche industry in games development: Tipp IT seems to be the place to go for that based on what I hear on the grapevine (an XNA MVP is teaching down there). If IT infrastructure is something that interests you then find out where you can get your hands on the MSDN kit that your college has rights to distribute. Some colleges provide hands-on labs and exam centres. Read books such as MS Prep exam guides. I promise you that the college course material will not prepare you for work as an IT infrastructure person (my networking lecturer was possibly a pot head who was stuck in 1960’s and thought it was important that we learn about token ring – in the mid 1990s).