They're an arty crowd, this bunch. They're honing their skills and aiming to be creative, innovative, experimental and curious. They want to know how the latest technology works. They're the sort of people who will use techniques such as morphing, 3D animation and virtual reality to achieve their goal. They want to know how they can use these inventions to make an impact. They see all technology is a tool to design or draw or create. This is the next crop of album designers, graphic advertisers, multimedia consultants, video producers and performance media gurus. Multimedia is now used in a wide range of careers. They will work in the cultural industries - television, radio, theatre, exhibition, museums, heritage and tourism. They will work in digital publishing, in information media and in design studios. And, as Helen Doherty, course co-ordinator of the bachelor of design in interactive media at Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology, adds, they will also go on to companies involved in web design, print advertising and multi-media production. There are 16 in the current year. "All the students will have achieved a good diploma in either design or a media related discipline," she says. "It's not a computer software course but they learn all the key packages, they learn all about concepts."

Students who want to benefit from the course, she explains, would have to have an interest in computers. "It's an awareness of the media. We interview all the appropriate applicants and look at their portfolios. They have to be creative in so many ways. They are designers, ideas people.

"In the course of a year we ask them to find a voice in interactive media, a sense of authorship, a design style.

"We would look for someone with good visual skills. Creative thinking is important and also a willingness to become involved in the second element of it, management of projects."

Emma Jane Reilly, from Balbriggan, Co Dublin, finished a diploma in design communications and decided to do this add-on degree year. She originally came to the college after completing a one-year PLC course in graphic design in Ballyfermot Senior College. Now she's delighted to learn more about "an industry that is growing and emerging all the time.

"It's all about ideas and putting them into a digital format and exploring what you can do. As a career, it covers a lot of things. CD ROMs, games, producing music videos on computers."

Mike Ahern, from Schull, Co Cork, did the graphic design diploma course in Dun Laoghaire. His interest at second-level was in art but he wanted to be practical and chose a career where he could make a secure living as well.

He's happy knowing that he is in the right area. "We have people who had no graphic design background, who came from fine art backgrounds." Also, he says, "I was into music and CD design and covers of albums.

"We do a lot more interactive stuff which I'm really interested in. We get to work in groups, so you learn what it's like to be an art director on a project."

Gillian Duffin, from Terenure, Dublin, is a graduate of the fine art diploma at Dun Laoghaire. She says that the transition from fine art to this year of multi-media was "huge - it takes a lot of adjusting. You come from a course that had a completly different structure. You spend a lot more time on projects in fine art, there are fewer lectures. There is so much technical stuff to learn."

This year, however, is different. "The speed with which everything is growing gives it a completely different structure." But, she adds: "I wanted to find out about different ways of communicating. You have to know how you're going to communicate this object to thousands of people. I wanted to know about new ways of communicating," she says. "I'd like to continue doing art work, I'd like to do it online and use it as a tool."

The course is for someone with "a creative mind", says Duffin. "In the beginning I had to learn all the technology. You have an overload but when you get beyond that and you know that this is what you can do and it's no longer in control of you, then you become the dictator, and it has huge possibilities as a creative medium."

Tarlach O Maolair started his career as a freelance sound engineer, but he became interested in computers, and 3D animation in particular. He went to Ballyfermot PLC college and from there to Dun Laoghaire college where he did the three-year design course.

"I think making stuff interactive is amazing," he says. "When you're designing for print everything is still on the page but when you design that interactive thing, you can't stop clicking. You are getting all the media - video, audio, still images, typography - and you're putting them into one medium, which is a new medium that is interactive!"

Dermot Rogers, who set up a multimedia recruitment company two years ago, tells the current class of degree year students that "IT is a huge area. The skills you are learning here are the same that people are learning anywhere in the world - Dublin, Seattle, Sydney. It won't make any difference. You can work anywhere."

In the early Eighties there were very few in the business, but today, he says, "you go to the web to find out about any organisation". The jobs potential for graduates is good and growing, he says.

"Almost everybody is in web/multimedia," he tells the group. He lists the wide range of organisations with e-publishing needs such as arts, industry, finance, retail, politics, agriculture, education, sport, tourism, religion.

At the moment, quite a lot of the students come from Dun Laoghaire. There are two from Carlow IT this year and another from Waterford IT.

The programme is a one year add-on degree and it's by direct entry to the college. For those who are eligible and thinking about applying, the closing date for applications is Friday, April 30th.

For information, contact admissions officer Liz Forsyth at (01) 214 4621. The course's internet site address is www.iadt-dl.ie