IT and Computers
The IT industry has recently begun to recover from the slight slump since the glory days of the early 1990s. It has accounted in no small part to Ireland’s economic stability and continues to thrive with an annual turnover in excess of €51 billion. Its contribution to Ireland’s employment levels has also been massive with Ireland’s Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) sector accounting for more than 90,000 jobs with 13,000 companies in Ireland.
The IT sector is vital to Ireland’s economy. Many of the world’s leading ICT companies have operations in Ireland – including Microsoft, Dell, and Google. Ireland is the largest exporter of software in the world and 60 per cent of all software packages sold in Europe are produced in Ireland.
The IT sector in Ireland is constantly evolving and continues to attract high-value jobs in a variety of different areas. The demand for highly-qualified graduates to continue this research and development is vital to ensure that Ireland stays at the cutting-edge of technological innovation and progression. Postgraduate courses are therefore, an important part of career development for anyone working or studying in the computing and IT sector.
Entry Requirements
A second-class honours primary degree (or higher) is generally required for admission and most students will have already studied IT or a related subject.
Graduates in related disciplines such as mathematics or engineering will have a good choice of IT-related postgraduate programmes. Conversion courses (usually graduate diplomas) are available to graduates of non-IT backgrounds and can fast-track you into the IT sector.
Relevant professional experience can also be taken into consideration for entry onto a course.
Courses Available
There is a wide variety of postgraduate IT courses available. Masters programmes are available in a number of areas, from well-known subjects such as software engineering to up-and-coming topics like business informatics and forensic computing.
Graduate diplomas in the form of conversion courses are particularly popular amongst those who don’t have a primary computing degree but who are interested in moving into a career in IT.
The particular course areas in the computers and IT sector are manifold. Options include computer engineering, computer science, computing mathematics and information technology, and these courses often allow students to specialise in their particular areas of interest.
More specialised postgraduate programmes are also available in a range of disciplines.
Software development is also a massive area for postgraduate study; options include software design & development, software engineering and software localisation.
ICT is also a growth area for postgraduate programmes with a wealth of specialised course options. Computing in education is yet another area that offers plenty of postgraduate course options.
Research Areas
Research and development are key elements of computing and IT. The industry continues to develop at an incredibly fast pace so the list of individual research topics in IT really is endless – covering everything and anything from artificial intelligence to video compression.
As the IT sector is so important to the Irish economy, the Irish government devotes a good deal of attention and resources to facilitating postgraduate research in the area. The Foresight Programme, which commits substantial resources to research in ICT, is good news for research students in these areas. Prospective students may also be able to take advantage of scholarship and graduate training opportunities through collaborations with the industry.
Career Paths
Computing and information technology is a very broad area. The rapid growth of the IT industry in Ireland has meant that career paths have not yet stabilised, and promotion and career development can happen more quickly than in other established industries.
Many third-level institutions have developed dedicated research centres, some of which have close links with local or global IT companies.
Those with postgraduate qualifications working in the IT sector fall into a varied number of specialities and job titles. Systems administrators, systems engineers, systems analysts and network engineers work within and for businesses to build and manage information systems that provide IT solutions to business problems. Computer hardware engineers and designers design and build the computer hardware. Web designers and multimedia experts work in the rapidly expanding Internet area.
Those with postgraduate qualifications in IT are also much sought after in other sectors such as the civil service, education, manufacturing, the media, and everywhere computers are used, which is, well, everywhere.
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