ARTS faculties are still the largest in most universities and, for all the emphasis on science and technology, the largest number of degree places available to ICAO applicants is still in arts.
There are roughly 5,000 first year arts places available to this year's Leaving Cert students, out in all; last year, 13,000 students listed arts as their first preference - higher than for any other study area. Business degrees had 11,000 first preference applicants and science 6,000. So arts degrees are popular.
Not all of those 13,000 are applying because of an abiding interest in arts, however; for many school leavers who are unable to decide what exactly it is they want to do, an arts degree is a way out - a way of going to college without having to commit themselves to too specific a career path until later. And this is a perfectly reasonable approach.
There is an increasing number of one year postgraduate "conversion" courses, whereby an arts graduate can do a more job related postgraduate diploma in areas such as business, computing, accounting, marketing, advertising and film production, among others. Some 55 per cent of all arts graduates go on to further study. In this regard, arts is no different to law (56 per cent going on to further study) and science (50 per cent).
JOB OPPORTUNITIES: Arts graduates always do better in a bouyant jobs market when employers, having to face competition for graduates, are prepared to hire people without job specific skills and train them on the job. Sean Gannon in Trinity's careers office reports that multinationals are hiring arts graduates and training them in areas such as management and finance. Loretta Jennings at Maynooth notes quite a number of employers who are looking for a good quality graduate rather than a specific degree.
The jobs scene seems to be reasonably OK for arts graduates with the proviso, as UCC's careers officer Nicholas Leonard points out, that most will need a postgraduate qualification.
The proportion of arts graduates getting employment directly on graduation rose to 38 per cent a very healthy sign indeed; there was a corresponding fall of almost 10 par cent in those going on to further education. Clearly, arts graduates are jobs.
Careers officers point out that you cannot pinpoint any specific area arts graduates are going into. "They need to identify the types of areas they are interested in and then target employers in those areas," says Sean Gannon.
SUBJECT CHOICE: The dilemma for many CAO applicants's is which arts disciplines to choose. The best advice is to fold low your instincts. Choose the disciplines which you like most and are best at. This is because, with an arts degree, it does not matter all that much what the degree is in. Your degree is giving you a broad, general education which an employer will value, but the employer is not particularly concerned whether it is in history, geography or Hebrew.
If you are madly interested in English literature, then go for it; if you are fascinated by archaeology, then that's fine too. Don't start thinking thoughts like "economics is a very practical subject, so it would be better from the point of view of a job". If you like economies and are likely to be good at it and get a good degree, fine; otherwise, you are wasting your time because a 2:1 in English literature is going to be far more impressive than a pass in economics.
SUBJECT COMBINATIONS: Look carefully in the college brochures at the subject combinations which each college arts faculty allows. It's important to know what you can and cannot combine before you start wasting time agonising about choices. The brochures have charts and grids which show what can and cannot be combined; you cannot take geography and psychology together at UCD, for example, nor archaeology and English. This seems odd. At Trinity, you cannot take ancient history/archaeology with classical civilisation which seems a bit odd, too.
OMNIBUS ENTRY: More or less all colleges except Trinity operate omnibus entry. This means that it is usually possible to get into sought after arts subjects such as English or history with somewhat lower points at UCC, UCG, UCD Maynooth and the others than at Trinity. Thus, UCD took all comers into arts down to 390 last year whereas English in Trinity required 475 points.
Two issues to watch out for here: in the case of Trinity, students have to list each arts combination separately on the form. Thus, Trinity arts alone can gobble up half your CAO degree options or more; whereas in the other colleges you get a choice of all arts options for the one listing.
The disadvantage in the case of omnibus listing as at UCD is that there is a limited number of places in second year in some faculties and, depending on first year exams, you may fail to make your preferred option.
WHICH COLLEGE? It genuinely does not matter all that much. The fact that the points are higher for some Trinity arts subjects means nothing. It arises simply because of the denominated entry procedure and because they have a much smaller number of places. UCD, for example, has 1,000 arts places - therefore, they were able to take some applicants down to 385 last year, whereas UCG had to stop at 405 and UCC at 395.
It's worth noting that the denominated entry procedures at Trinity also result in it being easier to get into some minority arts subjects such as classical civilisation (360 last year), Irish (320) or Latin (355).
Don't forget that Maynooth has a good arts degree - it's the only place you can take anthroapology - and that UL has one also with media communications studies as one of the available subjects. St Patrick's College in Drumcondra is also offering a BA which is validated by DCU. And don't forget the more applied arts degrees such as applied languages at DCU, European, studies at UL or language/culture at UCC. (A column later in the week will deal specifically with languages).
POSTGRAD COURSES: There is a wide variety of conversion courses available. Colm Tobin at UCD's careers office says that a one year business diploma such as that provided by UCD is a very considerable help to an arts' graduate in the jobs market. UL, and UCG also have such diplomas. With the boom in demand for those with computer skills, a computing conversion course is obviously a very good idea. UL, UCC and Maynooth have one year diplomas here, as does Athlone RTC. Galway RTC has a postgrad diploma in video production, the DIT has them in public relations, advertising and journalism; DCU has an accountancy conversion diploma, the DIT in marketing and UCD and UCG have arts administration and you can study library, information and archive studies at UCD.