Open Days 2009

I have compiled a list of the main University and College open days. Note that not all collges/universities are listed here as some have not yet stated a time and date for their open days. If you become aware of more open days or would like to see another college or university listed here, contact us.

National College of Art and Design

4 December 2008 9:30am-3:00pm

Athlone Institute of Technology

4 and 15 November 2008 10.00 a.m. - 2.00 pm

Cork Institute of Technology

22nd November 2008

Dublin City University

Fri 21st Nov 10am-3pm. - Sat 22nd Nov 11am-3pm.

Dundalk Institute of Technology

Fri. 17th October 2008 9am - 2pm

Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology

Friday, 21st November 2008 (10am – 4pm)
Saturday, 22nd November 2008 (11am – 4pm)
Wednesday, 14th January 2009 (5pm – 7pm)
Thursday, 15th January 2009 (5pm – 7pm)

Dublin Institute of Technology

Saturday, 6th December, 2008: 9.30am to 2.30pm

National University of Ireland, Galway

Thursday, 9th October 2008

University of Limerick

14 & 15 October 2008 Tours every hour from 10am-2pm.

Graduate Entry to Medicine (LM101) will be having
an Open Evening on Wednesday 26 November 2008.
(At Aungier Street Campus, Dublin 2)

National University of Ireland, Maynooth, Co. Kildare

Friday 28th November 2008 9:30am to 3pm
Saturday 29th November 2008 10:30am to 3pm

University Days:

Saturday 25th April 2009 10:30am to 3pm
Saturday 20th June 2009 10:30am to 3pm

Carlow College

November 20th 3pm-8pm

Institute of Technology, Sligo

Thursday 13th November 2008, 10am – 2pm

Institute of Technology, Tralee

Monday 17th

Head on over and get registered

Name: Jennie

Skills: Compiling Lists, Appreciating Pi, Using Sesquipedalian Turns of Phrase, Writing.

Bio: There’s no denying that there’s a lot to Jennie. She’s no ordinary young adult, but one aglow with an incandescent wit far beyond her years! Although profoundly interested in and enthusiastic about her schoolwork (for the most part) she has no qualms about taking it easy from time to time, spending hours engrossed in books, listening to some pretty questionable alternative music and wasting time on t’internet. The Leaving Cert’s definitely a topic she knows a lot about seeing as she’s a repeat, but nonetheless it’s still as daunting as ever.

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Name: Elizabeth

Bio: Hey, my name is Elizabeth and I’m doing my Leaving Cert in Muckross Park College in Dublin. After going through many career choices (a shepherd when I was three to a vegetarian restaurant when I was six to an acrobat when I was fifteen) I’ve finally decided medical research is my calling, so I’m hoping to do medicine in Trinity next year. This blog will be my take on the leaving cert as I try to get enough crazily high points to hopefully nab one of those oh so hard-to-get places in medicine. It will be a constant battle between my wish to study something interesting in college and my will to stay in bed and do nothing. It’ll be a tough year and sacrifices will have to be made (my precious 9 hours of sleep are under severe threat lately) but I’m hoping it’ll be worth it in August.

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Name: Daniel

Bio: I’m 17 and I’m from Dublin…..AND a fellow leaving cert student. I’m in 6th year in a fairly well known school on the Southside (whoever guesses right wins!).

I’m studying English, Irish, Maths, French, Spanish, Biology and Business (all higher level).
I’m loving the languages and want to travel the world but before any serious travelling hopefully college awaits. When not studying I like to go out and have fun with my friends.
I play guitar and at the minute I’m playing some good old classics of Greenday. I’m learning to drive too (good to unleash Leaving Cert frustration). 6th year’s fine but mainly trying to study when I can and have loads of fun when not studying.

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Name: Katie

Bio: Katie is a girl on a mission, with a license to learn. While academics are her number one priority this year, she has many outside interests which include: dart-ticket collecting, cactus planting, instrument-playing and most importantly this blog. She hopes to study medicine next year, so that in the future, she can help those who need it the most.

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Name: Paul

Bio: I Iive in Donegal, I’m grumpy (about school). I have terrible spelling. I like short snappy sentences. I’m into a lot of things; programming, computers, communications, ham radio. If it has to do with packets or voice I’m into it, telecommunications, VOIP and all that jazz. I play the drums; I play in a band in Derry called ‘Redro’. That’s about the height of it. I like to look on the funny side of life, and not take things too seriously, unless it’s very annoying, like school for instance. I’m hoping to go on and get a degree in computers and network communications. Great fun, I only need 180 points or so. But I want to try and get more, I have been told to expect 430 if I work - we’ll see how that goes.

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Those of you who entered will be notified by Tuesday the 4th of November.

Welcome leaving-cert students and other interested parties,

It’s a new school year and we are looking for a variety of Leaving Cert students to write for us. If you are interested in showcasing your personal writing on the web and a possible opportunity to hit the papers (as we did last year), please send us a 300 - 500 word article. In the article we want to get an idea of who you are, your personality, views on the LC, your prospects, etc. A bit of humour is always welcome too! It can be in the form of a straight forward article or perhaps a diary entry or a blog post just like we have had on Leaving-Cert.net previously. And please try to be yourself. Don’t be afraid to express yourself freely.

Fancy yourself as a bit of a journalist, eh? Email all submissions to submissions@leaving-cert.net before October 31st - Spread the word!

The all new Leaving-Cert.Net

This year, at Leaving-Cert.Net, we want to create an online center for second level students that has never been seen before. We aim to provide students with a platform for sharing their experiences, knowledge and opinions in a new exciting way. Along with a variety of new features and content. Hopefully this will take off sometime in the new year! If you think you can help our cause in anyway please drop us a line at info@leaving-cert.net or in our forums

Any interested media parties can catch us at media@leaving-cert.net

Leaving-cert.net is a network, an open forum for you by us. So please help us make it something for you by publicizing it!

Thank you,

Your crew at Leaving-Cert.Net!

Discuss Leaving-Cert.Net : Year 2 on the forums right now!

So again, the final step of the leaving cert is here. It will bring back memories and the fun (or lack thereof) we had during the exams. So prepare your caffeine fueled adrenalin rush and get ready as you unfold that page or load the results on the website.

I wish you all the best of luck. But remember, drink sensibly

The 2008 Leaving Certificate will be available on the 13th August 2008

It all began about half a year ago when Colin and myself had left the domain idle. We had various ideas but they were all put aside. So Colin came up with the idea of writing about our school experience right up until the exams. At first we were both weary of the potential this idea had so we let it settle for a while. One day I decided to put the Idea into action and got the website up and running within a few hours.

Where it brought us

As we began to blog we tried out various styles and ways of writing. We wanted some solid honesty from a student point of view, fused together with a hint of humour to keep everyone in good form. It was around March that we got into the swing of things, along with the addition of our new crew member, Amy. We were now a team. Once the site started to get some attention, a writer for the Irish Times happened to find our website. Gráinne Faller got in contact with us and we all wrote up reviews. And from there on things took off.

We began bloging like crazy and in a way became addicted to it. Writing about all our exam experiences throughout the leaving certificate year. In addition the website got 4,000 visits and 11,000 page views in the last month. The site had become a success after the endless hours of effort we put in and it finally paid off.

What we plan to do now

Now that we have gotten something back from the project, we are once again filled with ideas, inspiration and creativity. We plan to do some major expansion to the project, which will go into development over the summer. Full details of the new project will be released within the coming months. Rest assured it will be a big step forward for this growing community. What we can say is, there will be a lot of new features and things to do on the new site.

Interested?

We will be looking for Beta testers throughout the summer. We would love to know what you would like to see in the new website. If you think you would be interested in testing and getting a sneak peak of the website before everyone else does then drop us a line,

info[at]leaving-cert[dot]net

or use our contact page and email us.

Myself and Colin will be boarding a flight at 12:30 tomorrow and heading to a festival in Germany. So from me, the very best of luck to everyone and goodbye! Who knows whats going to happen with this website. And if you were listening to the ridiculous excellent talk on SpinSouth west, don’t drink too much!

Auf wiedersehn!

Construction Studies is probably a more favorable subject of mine. Although I really didn’t enjoy todays paper. To begin with, it was pouring rain all day which didn’t help the mood. The exam began about 10 minutes late. Having sat there for 5 minutes waiting to be handed my exam paper and then be informed that I had to walk half way down the school to find a drawing board and T-square. Excellent preparation on behalf of the examiners and school. As soon as i was seated again I was frantically waving both arms in an effort to get the examiners attention, until I got my exam paper.

Finally I began the exam, and had a flick through the paper. Question 1, an open fireplace. We were to draw a vertical section of the wall, foundation and fireplace. The foundations and walls were literally imprinted in my memory, except for the fireplace. Having briefly skimmed over a drawing of this very question, I was annoyed I hadn’t given it more time.

The only question that stood out as a big no no for me was the U-Values question. I have had enough of maths to last me a life time, so under no circumstances was I going to attempt that question. Some questions offered students an opening to use their creativity where as others required factual information as well as common sense. However, some questions in the paper can be a little ridiculous at times. I finished by trying to sketch a picture of a heating system in a house. Which went totally wrong. Although it did look graphically appealing..

With only one exam remaining, and a flight to Germany on Friday, I look forward to a break.

Discuss the Construction Studies Exams on The Forums

I thankfully arrived at the school without any hassle and sat in the car trying to look over some revision for German, which completely failed. I was confident that I was going to do well in the exam. Being the only student taking German in my school, I had the room to myself. And for the first time in my life did I feel like I was being viewed as an equal adult in the school, simply doing an exam.

The exam began and I got stuck in. Having forgot my pencil case on the way in, I had to rush to a nearby shop to get a set of pens. After about five minutes of writing the pens had failed me. Kindly enough, the examiner went and got me a pen, and so I set off. Text 1, Grand Theft Wallet. It was a pretty interesting story I have to say. The questions were fairly straight forward, although one or two were tricky from a non-German point of view. The following text was a more factual piece that required the reader to identify the facts in order to answer the questions.

The bit that caught me out was the following part to the text. Grammar, I hate it. It’s my enemy, so I took a gamble and guessed. The part b of the grammar was however a lot easier. Having said that I would have still failed trying to apply even the simplest of grammatical rules. So I went with my instincts and wrote down what sounded right to me. Hopefully that went right.

The final part was describing an image and writing a letter. I decided I would give a good 50 minutes to the letter and I ended up writing about four pages disagreeing with everything on the letter and taking into a huge rant about global warming.

Hopefully I will get to see that robot washing windows when I’m in the train station in Berlin ;-]

Discuss German in the forum? Or tech graph?