Business Information Systems

Kerry_2008

hey all, just asking on behalf of a friend.... she's considering a BIS course to enhance career prospects, coming with a degree in a construction related area. does anyone have opinions good/bad about undertaking such a course in your early 30's?
would graduating age be a deterrent to prospective employers?
would she have to start on year 1 of undergrad?
she is working at moment and is investigating part time options.

any advise appreciated!
cheers.

Moomat

Kerry_2008 wrote: »

hey all, just asking on behalf of a friend.... she's considering a BIS course to enhance career prospects, coming with a degree in a construction related area. does anyone have opinions good/bad about undertaking such a course in your early 30's?
would graduating age be a deterrent to prospective employers?
would she have to start on year 1 of undergrad?
she is working at moment and is investigating part time options.

any advise appreciated!
cheers.

I can't offer any advice on career prospects but she certainly shouldn't let her age stop her. If she graduated in her mid 30's she'd still have at least 35 years left before retirement. Plenty of time to progress in her chosen career!

ToxicPaddy

Kerry_2008 wrote: »

hey all, just asking on behalf of a friend.... she's considering a BIS course to enhance career prospects, coming with a degree in a construction related area. does anyone have opinions good/bad about undertaking such a course in your early 30's?
would graduating age be a deterrent to prospective employers?
would she have to start on year 1 of undergrad?
she is working at moment and is investigating part time options.

any advise appreciated!
cheers.

I'm doing that course part time at the moment and I'm in my late 30s.
Just finishing my first year and in the middle of exams.

It's very possible to do part time but is a lot of work. I work in IT so I'm in it for the parchment at the end, to improve future job options (getting past HR) in the future and most importantly to prove to myself I can do it.

It seems to be a well regarded course and from what I hear and there are plenty of IT jobs out there but it really depends on what your friend is willing to do career wise after she graduates.

Graduates start on the bottom rung of the ladder in terms of work, salary and experience. If your friend is happy to start again from scratch, I reckon no she would have no problems finding a graduate job as she would have plenty of experience working in a structured work environment which straight away gives her a huge advantage over younger first time grads who came straight out of school with no real "life" experience.

I was told that as a rule of thumb:

1 hour of class requires 2 hours of study/assignment time per week.

For me that equates to 9 hours class and 18 hours of study/assignment allocated time per week. My weekends of relaxing and socialising have been cut down to the very minimum but its something I'm willing to do.

The study/assignment allocated time naturally increases as you go through the years.

This has stood me well and the weeks before the exams, I took 2 weeks off aswell as all time during the exams and putting 10+ hours prep time per day revising as Im looking to do well and just scrape by.

So if she has the time to spare, then go for it.

JeremyH

Kerry_2008 wrote: »

hey all, just asking on behalf of a friend.... she's considering a BIS course to enhance career prospects, coming with a degree in a construction related area. does anyone have opinions good/bad about undertaking such a course in your early 30's?
would graduating age be a deterrent to prospective employers?
would she have to start on year 1 of undergrad?
she is working at moment and is investigating part time options.

any advise appreciated!
cheers.

I work in BIS in UCC and if your friend has a degree already (minimum 2:2), she is eligible for a number of conversion Master's programmes in BIS.

http://bis.ucc.ie/Courses.aspx

Happy to chat with your friend if she wants more info.

Kerry_2008

thanks guys, we're just catching up on replies now. ToxicPaddy - she's delighted with your firsthand input.
Jeremy, thanks for that! she has decided that financially she cannot leave her job for a year and there are no part-time options in UCC (unfortunately) so she is still quite undecided!

ToxicPaddy

Kerry_2008 wrote: »

thanks guys, we're just catching up on replies now. ToxicPaddy - she's delighted with your firsthand input.
Jeremy, thanks for that! she has decided that financially she cannot leave her job for a year and there are no part-time options in UCC (unfortunately) so she is still quite undecided!

Glad I can help, if she has any further questions, drop me a pm and I'll help any way I can.

Tox