Opinion of DIT - Worth it?

eoinp11

Hi, i am hoping someone might be able to boil down if this college is good or not? I am going for the Hdip in computer science and i hear that dit is quite respected for it's computer science (Kevin street)

But i also get the sense it is not run very well (lot of complaints, crappy canteen, filthy toilets, facebook filled library, unhelpful staff) Don't know if i should just take this as normal complaints everyone will find or something to seriously note. (i'm in it for the education, but being annoyed all the time can affect that!)

I have an offer for the same course in NCI. Which i don't know much about vs DIT.

Unfortunately the Grangegorman move won't happen till 2016/2017

PaperArchitect

I don't know anything about that course or Kevin St. but DIT is recognised as university equivalent and will soon be a University of Technology. NCI would not be regarded at that level and would not be as easily recognised outside of Ireland.

eoinp11

PaperArchitect wrote: »

I don't know anything about that course or Kevin St. but DIT is recognised as university equivalent and will soon be a University of Technology. NCI would not be regarded at that level and would not be as easily recognised outside of Ireland.

Thanks for the feedback! I accepted for DIT

J_E

eoinp11 wrote: »

But i also get the sense it is not run very well (lot of complaints, crappy canteen, filthy toilets, facebook filled library, unhelpful staff) Don't know if i should just take this as normal complaints everyone will find or something to seriously note. (i'm in it for the education, but being annoyed all the time can affect that!)

Don't know where you heard that, but in all of the campuses I attend for class (Bolton St, Aungier St, Grangegorman) the toilets are cleaned regularly, staff are always helpful, canteen is pretty decent. If people use Facebook in the library you can't possibly hold that against the college itself, can you? You'll find that no matter where you go.

eoinp11

J_E wrote: »

Don't know where you heard that, but in all of the campuses I attend for class (Bolton St, Aungier St, Grangegorman) the toilets are cleaned regularly, staff are always helpful, canteen is pretty decent. If people use Facebook in the library you can't possibly hold that against the college itself, can you? You'll find that no matter where you go.

Well i figure if you want to avoid that you bring your own laptop (if you don't have one then it'd be pretty annoying) But that was among the list of complaints that came up..

Glad to hear your feed back because i accepted it anyways! Mostly as i heard their course standards for computing is excellent and didn't wanna neglect that fact over some pissy toilets. (which apparently are not afterall)

spurious

Sadly, people not fully engaging in the educational experience, or not respecting facilities is not confined to any one educational institution.

MillField

I studied computer science in Kevin Street. The course itself is good and nobody from my class seems to have had any issue getting work (we graduated last October). The facilities are a bit dated though and definitely need upgrading. I'd say that won't happen until the move to Grangegorman unfortunately. The library is pretty small and can get crowded around exam time. Luckily Aungier Street is just across the road so you wouldn't have to wait long to get a seat somewhere. The lecture halls are a bit...tatty. The computer labs are a bit small but to be honest none of this really matters when you're in the course from day to day.

combustible

I'm about to start my second year at Kevin St (currently studying physics), and I've found the campus to be pretty good so far, however "dated" and "tatty" are pretty fair assessments of the lecture halls and some lab/computer equipment. Kevin St. is one of the last to make the move, I think.

The wifi can be a bit fickle; there's two on campus, eduroam and dit.lan or something, and I could only ever get the latter to connect (using that term very loosely I'd have to keep signing in whenever I wanted to use it but that may have been my old phone).

I've never eaten from the canteen (or the snackery, still don't know if there's any actual distinction between the two), but it gets very overcrowded between 12-1, when it seems like the entire building is on lunch, as well as very warm. I've only ever seen two sockets there and they're both near the door/at the top half, and rarely free. On that note, always bring a phone charger to college!! (and spare cash, a brolly, painkillers, pads/tampons etc, snacks and a bottle of water, just keep 'em in your bag, you never know when you might need them!)

seeing as it's your first year: bring a lock on your first day and grab the first available locker you see. doesn't matter where it is. I don't know if a computer science course in particular would have a lot of reading material but the science courses do. don't take a locker if you don't need one.

all of the ladies' toilets are fine; can't vouch for the gents', but the one outside the snackery is really smelly
there's drinking fountains all over the place if you ever need to top up your water bottle or w/e, but as far as I remember, only the ones in the annex work well.

the staff are all pretty chill and happy to help if you need it, don't worry about that. good luck with your first year, hope you enjoy it!!