What course to study

damien12

Hi All,

I hope that this post is in the correct place.

I am currently working in a job where we test materials that we produce. There is a commerically available software system specific to our industry in Ireland and the UK and there are about 40-50 users for this system.

Each user pays into an upgrade fund annually on top of system licences for the software system, we have regular 'user group' meetings to get together and we review any upgrades or bugs in the system that require update or repair, we meet with the software development people at these meetings also. However the software company are desperately slow to apply these upgrades, have little interest in our business and are always looking for huge fees to carry out any work for us. To make a long story short, there would be a great opportunity for a competitor to come into the industry to provide an alternative software that was more friendly and adaptable, all the users I know would go for it.

I was thinking of doing an IT course (not my background at present) so that I could have an understanding of how software and databases were designed, and then I could hook up with a professional designer on a long term basis to work on a rival system. I would have a good input on what features the end user would want and to market the system, while an IT professional programmer would need to be on board also.

Can anyone advise what area of study I should consider? I was looking at the Part Time courses from DIT, like the 3 year part time Higher Certificate in Computer Programming, does anyone have any other advice??

Just to clarify the system we use at the minute is based on the user having a web based input interface for end users and a SQL server database to store and sort the data. Users can customise input screens and database report templates relatively easily.

A longshot but any advice would be much appreciated.

Kevster

Damian,

I think that a general degree such as 'computer science' is the correct option here. In such a general degree, you learn 'a little about a lot' with regard to the IT industry. However, you would most likely do some 'spin off' subjects (as I call them) such as accounting, business mgmt, etc., which would help you too.

DCU, DIT, and Trinity have good Computer Science degree programmes.

Kevin

Capt'n Midnight

another alternative is to see if there is an open source alternative already out there