Official bitch about daily life in UL

Chris Martin

On library computers now and said while I'm here I'll get search for some readings for FYP, something to do tonight...
Love the computers here anyway, incredibly fast and that, however the new library search page. Absolutely amazing. Ridiculously fast and accurate when searching. Suggests similar articles as well once you've found them as well and you can mass download articles as well. Got about a month's worth of readings in half an hour.

TMJM96

I have my first meeting for Co-Op next week, it's just about the CV and all that. Does anyone have general advice for dealing with the CoOp office because I've heard they're a bit, dodgy :rolleyes:

Midkemia

The co-op office are no where near as bad as they are made out :pac:

TMJM96

Midkemia wrote: »

The co-op office are no where near as bad as they are made out :pac:

Hopefully not, I have a list of companies I want to go to and I'm staying in Ireland (probably staying in Limerick tbh) so hopefully it's painless

kerryked

TMJM96 wrote: »

I have my first meeting for Co-Op next week, it's just about the CV and all that. Does anyone have general advice for dealing with the CoOp office because I've heard they're a bit, dodgy :rolleyes:

Just back from CoOp myself, have to say I didn't have too much of a problem with the office. Then again I was just a "standard" placement, none of your fancy Erasmus, school placement, study abroad or what have you :pac:

My experience with the interviews was that sometimes they don't give you a lot of notice (possibly down to companies not giving them enough notice of interviews, or just sheer volume of interviews to be organised), so it'd be handy to have interview clothes waiting and ready to go should you need them.

Other than that, just do up your CV as best you can, make sure you have questions to ask in the meeting (where you can improve it etc.).

The Pre-CoOp assessment form is online so get that filled out whenever they tell you to. Maybe allow a couple of days to do it, it gets a bit tedious.

After that hopefully you'll have lots of interviews and you get a good placement. Best of luck with it!

Bonus tip: Once you're on CoOp, question everything. Ask questions about stuff you don't know, stuff you're unsure of. At the end of the day you're there to learn, you might feel like you're annoying but most people are generally happy to help out CoOp students because they understand you're not going to know everything.

TMJM96

kerryked wrote: »

Just back from CoOp myself, have to say I didn't have too much of a problem with the office. Then again I was just a "standard" placement, none of your fancy Erasmus, school placement, study abroad or what have you :pac:

My experience with the interviews was that sometimes they don't give you a lot of notice (possibly down to companies not giving them enough notice of interviews, or just sheer volume of interviews to be organised), so it'd be handy to have interview clothes waiting and ready to go should you need them.

Other than that, just do up your CV as best you can, make sure you have questions to ask in the meeting (where you can improve it etc.).

The Pre-CoOp assessment form is online so get that filled out whenever they tell you to. Maybe allow a couple of days to do it, it gets a bit tedious.

After that hopefully you'll have lots of interviews and you get a good placement. Best of luck with it!

Bonus tip: Once you're on CoOp, question everything. Ask questions about stuff you don't know, stuff you're unsure of. At the end of the day you're there to learn, you might feel like you're annoying but most people are generally happy to help out CoOp students because they understand you're not going to know everything.

Where would I find the Pre Co-op form? Can't find it anywhere.

I don't have any work related to the field I study and a lot of people in my course do so I'm already at a disadvantage

Chris Martin

I split Coop into 2, went abroad for second half and sorted first part out myself.
If you want to go abroad they're actually very good. Let them know what you're interested in and they'll send emails onto you. Taught English myself in Spain.
Wish I could be more help with the former but I do remember it was very difficult to get a paid job in Ireland for Coop if referred by Coop office, if you want paid work you're better off asking around yourself, contacting companies you're interested in and letting them know what you want. I think 1 in 5 Irish companies paid when I was in Coop.

TMJM96

Chris Martin wrote: »

I split Coop into 2, went abroad for second half and sorted first part out myself.
If you want to go abroad they're actually very good. Let them know what you're interested in and they'll send emails onto you. Taught English myself in Spain.
Wish I could be more help with the former but I do remember it was very difficult to get a paid job in Ireland for Coop if referred by Coop office, if you want paid work you're better off asking around yourself, contacting companies you're interested in and letting them know what you want. I think 1 in 5 Irish companies paid when I was in Coop.

What department are you in if you don't mind me asking? I've never heard of people from my course or department doing unpaid CoOp! All the companies I've looked into doing CoOp with have said to apply through the office, so...

Chris Martin

Course is Economics and Sociology so have dealt with Arts and Humanities primarily but also Economics. For my Coop I was dealing with Arts and Humanities. It's definitely a lot easier to deal with Coop office as they set everything up, they are the link between you and them and they can't really fire you either if it's set up through college. There has been a lot of talk of exploitation though as an awful lot of companies in Ireland don't pay for students.

kerryked

TMJM96 wrote: »

Where would I find the Pre Co-op form? Can't find it anywhere.

I don't have any work related to the field I study and a lot of people in my course do so I'm already at a disadvantage

Ah yes, those bloody forms are notoriously hard to find, in my experience anyway. They're here. You need to register or login, I'm sure you'll figure out that part.

Just in relation to your second point; do you mean others already have CoOp sorted through the office/themselves? or do you mean some people have got summer/weekend jobs in the area?

As mentioned, it would definitely be easier to let the office arrange your placement for you. Only downside is you have to take the first offer you receive.

wnolan1992

I had a mixed experience with the Co-Op office... When I was down for International placement I couldn't fault them. The sorted a fair few interviews and I always had plenty of notice. Where I think they messed up a bit was they stopped finding me interviews after I'd had a really good one where I was basically told I had the job, only to be told 2 and a half weeks later that there'd been funding cuts at the institution I was going to, so they weren't taking someone on for the position I had. At that stage they just pushed me back to Irish placement.

My experience for Irish placement was less pleasant. I had a few interviews. For one, I received (literally) 40 minutes notice. I got a phonecall at 9:20 saying "You've an interview at 10am. You were the only person from your course they wanted to see, so when we sent out the notifications, we missed you. Soz." T'was lucky I was living on campus at the time or I would have missed that like...

I also had an interview in Dublin at the end of October, and despite repeatedly asking the Co-Op office to find out what the story was, I didn't hear back until December.


My advice? Keep hounding them if they aren't doing stuff. Call into the office and talk to them face to face. And don't despair if it takes a while to sort placement out. I literally secured my job at 11am on the morning when we'd to go in to select the modules you do if you don't have placement, and tbh it was the best 9 months of my life and was, IMO, better than a lot of the placements people had secured earlier because I got full ownership of the project I was working on.

Midkemia

TMJM96 wrote: »

Hopefully not, I have a list of companies I want to go to and I'm staying in Ireland (probably staying in Limerick tbh) so hopefully it's painless

I don't think you get to choose companies, its more the companies pick you I believe, although if your QCA is really high or you have an amazing CV I'd say you'll have no trouble.

TMJM96

Midkemia wrote: »

I don't think you get to choose companies, its more the companies pick you I believe, although if your QCA is really high or you have an amazing CV I'd say you'll have no trouble.

I was under the impression that we said we wanted to go to X, Y and Z and the CoOp office then contacted those companies and organised an interview if possible.

I've a sh!te QCA so this process will be fun :P

Pete123456

TMJM96 wrote: »

I was under the impression that we said we wanted to go to X, Y and Z and the CoOp office then contacted those companies and organised an interview if possible.

I've a sh!te QCA so this process will be fun :P

As far as I know the companies request cvs and the coop office send them out in batches based on QCA. The companies then review them and contact the coop office asking for student 1 2 and 3... unless you get your own coop organised, you have to take your first offer from the coop office. Although I don't think you have to take unpaid coop but I could be wrong on that bit

TMJM96

Pete123456 wrote: »

As far as I know the companies request cvs and the coop office send them out in batches based on QCA. The companies then review them and contact the coop office asking for student 1 2 and 3... unless you get your own coop organised, you have to take your first offer from the coop office. Although I don't think you have to take unpaid coop but I could be wrong on that bit

Ah well :rolleyes:

Looks like I'll be organising my own so

Pete123456

TMJM96 wrote: »

Ah well :rolleyes:

Looks like I'll be organising my own so

I wish you the very best of luck....

I had a poor enough experience with the coop office... myself and a good few more in my course were without a coop at the end of January....

You're probably way better off and will potentially be paid more if you organise your own

TMJM96

Pete123456 wrote: »

I wish you the very best of luck....

I had a poor enough experience with the coop office... myself and a good few more in my course were without a coop at the end of January....

You're probably way better off and will potentially be paid more if you organise your own

I kinda had my heart set on a certain company the last few months and you can only get them with the office.

Back to square one now, can't think of companies that employ my course other than ones listed via the office

FionnK86

TMJM96 wrote: »

I kinda had my heart set on a certain company the last few months and you can only get them with the office.

Back to square one now, can't think of companies that employ my course other than ones listed via the office

TMJM96 you need to get in to them and explain the situation. CoOp is one of the main selling points when it comes to getting yourself a job in your field of study. I sat back in 2nd year and managed to get place despite a low QCA, where others in the class had higher QCA's but didn't get placed.

I'm in 4th year and Im up against the same guys in my class who didn't go on CoOp. If your QCA is low employers won't be concerned, but they will look at your experience, especially if the other guys going for interview are all mentioning Coop.

It's a pain in the arse going between lectures to the office, but it's 6 months put of your life, you might as well try get an option to spend it somewhere nice.

TMJM96

FionnK86 wrote: »

TMJM96 you need to get in to them and explain the situation. CoOp is one of the main selling points when it comes to getting yourself a job in your field of study. I sat back in 2nd year and managed to get place despite a low QCA, where others in the class had higher QCA's but didn't get placed.

I'm in 4th year and Im up against the same guys in my class who didn't go on CoOp. If your QCA is low employers won't be concerned, but they will look at your experience, especially if the other guys going for interview are all mentioning Coop.

It's a pain in the arse going between lectures to the office, but it's 6 months put of your life, you might as well try get an option to spend it somewhere nice.

My QCA isn't atrocious and I think it'll be salvageable after this semester. I went into the CoOp office last week to see if I could find anything about about the CoOp placement or the companies I could go to and they told me to just wait until we were contacted further.

Pete123456

TMJM96 wrote: »

My QCA isn't atrocious and I think it'll be salvageable after this semester. I went into the CoOp office last week to see if I could find anything about about the CoOp placement or the companies I could go to and they told me to just wait until we were contacted further.

They will continue to fob you off with the "weel contact you when we have something" line unfortunately there's not a whole pile you can do other than ring your placement officer every now and then and continue to look for your own placement. The whole process needs an overhaul believe me

kerryked

Pete123456 wrote: »

They will continue to fob you off with the "weel contact you when we have something" line unfortunately there's not a whole pile you can do other than ring your placement officer every now and then and continue to look for your own placement. The whole process needs an overhaul believe me

To be fair, the office is sending out a few thousand students every year. You can't have people rocking up demanding to be put in company X,Y,Z, it just doesn't work like that unfortunately.

At the end of the day, we're very lucky to have an industry placement. Even if you end up photocopying for 8 months, there will surely be something you will learn from the company if you're any way bothered at all. I think the "i got a bad company" excuse can't really be justified, students also need to take responsibility for their learning on CoOp.

I do understand that it can be annoying if they aren't getting back to you though, the only thing to do is keep in contact with them and stay up to date.

TMJM96

kerryked wrote: »

To be fair, the office is sending out a few thousand students every year. You can't have people rocking up demanding to be put in company X,Y,Z, it just doesn't work like that unfortunately.

At the end of the day, we're very lucky to have an industry placement. Even if you end up photocopying for 8 months, there will surely be something you will learn from the company if you're any way bothered at all. I think the "i got a bad company" excuse can't really be justified, students also need to take responsibility for their learning on CoOp.

I do understand that it can be annoying if they aren't getting back to you though, the only thing to do is keep in contact with them and stay up to date.

Oh I know I can't demand a placement and I appreciate we have the chance. I was just under the impression that we told the CoOp office what companies we wanted to go to and then they sent our CVs out to them!

Sorry if I came across as rude making that point, that wasn't what I meant

kerryked

TMJM96 wrote: »

Oh I know I can't demand a placement and I appreciate we have the chance. I was just under the impression that we told the CoOp office what companies we wanted to go to and then they sent our CVs out to them!

Sorry if I came across as rude making that point, that wasn't what I meant

Wasn't meant as a dig at you, I know you were just looking for advice!

Your situation. however, probably does point to a failure by the CoOp office to properly inform students fully about the process. I know they have the big faculty-level meetings with the CoOp managers, but in terms of how the whole thing works maybe they could do a little better

tr0llface

waiting for the ssc to get back to me on whether i can re-enter second semester or not after dropping out last year....I'm currently experiencing high anxiety

strawberryjams

the heat in the library is unbearable right now

Chris Martin

Probably an unnecessary heads up, but lock your doors!
House broken into over weekend.
I say broken into as loosely as I can, he walked in the back door, housemate left it open, half 3 in the morning.
Came into my room as well. Fortunately I was awake, door was to back of me and I'd headphones on but he used his phone as a torch and I saw wall in front of me light up.
Turned around, head peaking through the door, slammed the door and shot out.
Didn't realise what had happened at first, thought it might have been a housemate, got up and checked and back door wide open and must've knocked over a chair and brushes on way out too.
Again, just a heads up, lucky I was home really.

TMJM96

Chris Martin wrote: »

Probably an unnecessary heads up, but lock your doors!
House broken into over weekend.
I say broken into as loosely as I can, he walked in the back door, housemate left it open, half 3 in the morning.
Came into my room as well. Fortunately I was awake, door was to back of me and I'd headphones on but he used his phone as a torch and I saw wall in front of me light up.
Turned around, head peaking through the door, slammed the door and shot out.
Didn't realise what had happened at first, thought it might have been a housemate, got up and checked and back door wide open and must've knocked over a chair and brushes on way out too.
Again, just a heads up, lucky I was home really.

Few cases like this in the last few weeks. Gardaí were going around Elm at the start of week one telling people to ensure to lock everything as a house was broken into at that time.

Scary stuff really, especially if you have your valuables and college work out in view

FionnK86

TMJM96 wrote: »

Few cases like this in the last few weeks. Gardaí were going around Elm at the start of week one telling people to ensure to lock everything as a house was broken into at that time.

Scary stuff really, especially if you have your valuables and college work out in view

This happened at a party I was at in CC in 1st year. Gang of kn**kers walked into party, no one blinked an eye. They walked upstairs took all the laptops and left again.

TMJM96

FionnK86 wrote: »

This happened at a party I was at in CC in 1st year. Gang of kn**kers walked into party, no one blinked an eye. They walked upstairs took all the laptops and left again.

Friends in CC had the same experience a few weeks ago, luckily the intruders were caught before they took anything! It was fairly close though

ScummyMan

It's only just hit me now when I saw the mail about booking on-campus accommodation for next year, that I won't be coming back next year

Where did 4 years go