Thinking of dropping down to pass irish

Jako8

Is it worth it? I am in 4th year (in our school 5th year is LC and I know in some schools 6th year is LC but we call TY TY lol whereas other schools call it 4th year) and I am wondering is it hard in LC?

spurious

Worth it how?
Do you need Higher Irish for your college/work plans?
Do you find Irish difficult?
Have you other subjects you need to spend extra time on instead?

It's a lot of work if you don't have a natural feel and grá for the language.

Cindy2106

Think long and hard before you drop to pass Irish, I have several friends who did drop honours and later on decided they wanted to do primary teaching and had to sit honours Irish again.. Irish requires work, but if you put in work, you'll get results..

Mazletov

A lot of people drop honours Irish if all their other subjects are honours. I think its very early to be cutting down your options in 4th year. The honours course is very long with tonnes of poetry, stories, stair na gaeilge etc. If you really dislike it and/or are bad at Irish its probably the right option but if you feel you could manage it - go for it. If the worst comes to the worst you could drop down during 5th year.

Fad

Mazletov wrote: »

The honours course is very long with tonnes of poetry, stories, stair na gaeilge etc.

I think saying its long is very different to saying its difficult.

I find LC Irish to be alot easier than JC Irish because its soooooo much more predictable, in comparison to JC. I mean JC seemed to be pretty random (I know this is not entirely true though) and I find that LC poetry is waaaaaaay easier than having to learn off poems at JC (I did not do Subh Milis!)

I know you might think that you're wasting your time, but if you
put a decent effort in from the start you can come out at the end with a very good mark. Just because somethings hard, that doesnt mean give it up.

gaeilgegrinds

I obviously am supposed to tell you not to drop down but in all honestly I'd wait even if you suspect you will drop down. Have ye done many of the poems or prose pieces yet?

thebigcheese22

IMO if you think its too much work then you should drop down :rolleyes:
I was always craaap at Irish - i dropped out first day of 5th year and never looked back! :cool:
It was my only pass subject in the LC and I was able to concentrate on the subjects that will be useful in later life :pac:
In college now and the nostalgia is brill thanks!

Jako8

Well I do honours everything else and I never really liked irish

and no I dont need it for any future profession I want to do computer science so maybe if I drop irish I can concentrate on maths because although Its not that hard this year it will probably be rock hard next

Ticktactoe

After the JC and TY i went down to pass Irish. I have to say at the time i was not happy but i knew myself that it was going to be a struggle if i kept it on. It was my weakest subject and would have taken up most of the time i had while forcing me to neglect other subjects that needed a bit more time. I went down to pass irish because i knew that i would not need honours irish for any of the college courses i was thinking of doing.

If you are unsure about which courses you want to do, you are prob best keeping on the honours however if your other subjects are going to suffer you are best to go to pass and put the extra effort into subjects that will benefit from it.

Irish and french were the two subjects i went down to pass for and it wasn't until close to the actual leaving cert that i went down to pass french. I was very happy with my leaving cert mark for irish (and French!)and even tho it was a few years ago at this stage, I never regretted going down.

Fad

Jako8 wrote: »

Well I do honours everything else and I never really liked irish

and no I dont need it for any future profession I want to do computer science so maybe if I drop irish I can concentrate on maths because although Its not that hard this year it will probably be rock hard next

You see the jump in Irish isnt THAT big, the jump in maths is pretty huge.

So many people start 5th year with the best of intentions when it comes with Maths but if you dont put a big amount of work in from the get go, it will most likely overwhelm you, Im not trying to discourage you but keep it in mind.

Id say Hons Irish is easier than Hons Maths, but thay are completely different.

Ticktactoe

Fad wrote: »

You see the jump in Irish isnt THAT big, the jump in maths is pretty huge.

So many people start 5th year with the best of intentions when it comes with Maths but if you dont put a big amount of work in from the get go, it will most likely overwhelm you, Im not trying to discourage you but keep it in mind.

Id say Hons Irish is easier than Hons Maths, but thay are completely different.

I did honours Maths and pass Irish and found honours maths to be easier! Really depends on what you have a flare for, oh and a good teacher helps! I did computers in college so hated all the languages such as english, irish, french etc but absol love/d maths etc. :rolleyes:

PurpleFistMixer

Jako8 wrote: »

Well I do honours everything else and I never really liked irish

and no I dont need it for any future profession I want to do computer science so maybe if I drop irish I can concentrate on maths because although Its not that hard this year it will probably be rock hard next

But you don't know. You might find it easy. (How difficult HL Maths is is often overhyped.) There's no point in making decisions when you haven't even done any of the course yet.
Also, the HL Irish course is essentially just the OL course and more (and expecting a higher standard of course). So you can leave it pretty late to drop down and still be well covered for OL, if you so choose to do so. No point writing it off before you've even done it... Stair Na Teanga is pretty interesting anyway. : p

Dubs

personally i dont think HL maths or irish are that hard. That being said im pretty woeful at the both at the moment but thats only because i havent been assed to study them yet.

the chrimbo exams kind of opened my eyes as to how easy the two of them are when you actually just sit down and study them

my advice to you is learn the notes you get this year because it will help you soooo much next year (which im regretting not doing), and then decide when the time comes next year

Gavin "shels"

You said you're doing honours on all subjects? Are you doing 7 subjects? If so then you'll still be able to achieve 600 points even if you drop down in Irish.

Weight up your options, do you need 600 points? Do you need Higher Irish for college course you want? Would you see yourself dropping down in other subjects?

BoozyBabe

Jako8 wrote: »

Well I do honours everything else and I never really liked irish

and no I dont need it for any future profession I want to do computer science so maybe if I drop irish I can concentrate on maths because although Its not that hard this year it will probably be rock hard next

Just thought I'd post to say, what you think you want now, isn't necessarily what you'll always want to do, so think carefully now before limiting your options later.

Granted, I did my LC over a decade ago when the points race didn't seem so fierce. I was crap at Irish, didn't like it, so did pass without even a second thought. Sure it was a stupid subject anyway, & I wanted to do computer science so I was never going to need it again anyway.

WRONG!!!!

After quite a few years in IT, I'm bored to tears, as are many many other people I know & went to college with. It becomes rather mundane & monotonous, doing the same boring things day in day out, & not at all like the exciting, interesting career you once thought it'd be.
So, 11 years after my LC, & because of my shortsightedness at the time, I had to repeat my LC in June gone past to get my honour in Irish, as after all this time I realised teaching is what I wanted to do.

I'm not suggesting for one minute that in 10 years time you'll find yourself in my position, but you just might. Think very carefully before limiting your options.

Best of luck in what you decide, & btw, as others have said, I think it's V early for you to be deciding on subjects to move down in.
Give them a good chance 1st.

zonEEE

If your going for computer science id say drop it, only thing you really need it for is primary teaching, also the points in computer science are fairly low, where are you thinking of doing it?

thebigcheese22

Ticktactoe wrote: »

I did honours Maths and pass Irish and found honours maths to be easier!

Yeah I was totally the same!
Tho in fairness pass irish is piss! :rolleyes:

Ticktactoe

thebigcheese22 wrote: »

Yeah I was totally the same!
Tho in fairness pass irish is piss! :rolleyes:

Can calculate, but cant string a sentence together, love it! I was useless at all language based subjects.... loved the technical thinking tho.
Now the question is, what you studied/wanted to be in college after LC, are you working in that area now... for me BIG no!