If you believe a degree would strengthen your career but don’t want to go back to education full-time - and can’t devote the typical four years to getting one part-time - National College of Ireland has a first-class honours alternative.
It is offering students the opportunity to secure an honours Bachelor of Arts degree in either business management or HRM strategy and practice, on a part-time basis – in just two years.
“These degrees are really popular,” says Caroline Kennedy, head of career development and employability at National College of Ireland, located in Dublin’s docklands.
“We launched four years ago and last year we had 85 people graduating from the HR programme and 75 from the business degree.”
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Kennedy tracks graduate progress. “Some 80 per cent of those who graduated from the HR degree last year were working in a HR role when they left, and 20 per cent used it to move jobs within six months of leaving the programme.”
Of those who moved jobs, 44 per cent moved companies, while 36 per cent had been promoted internally.
Of business degree graduates, within six months of graduation 45 per cent had moved companies, and 30 per cent received a promotion within the organisation they worked for.
Kennedy’s research showed the varied reasons people undertook the courses in the first place.
“Some people might not have had a degree but felt they needed one. Others were interested in moving into a new career, such as working in admin perhaps, but wanting to move into HR,” she says.
A huge part of the appeal of these degree courses is their innovative design. By doing away with the traditional long summer holidays, it condenses three years’ worth of study into just two. “Two years feels very doable to most students,” says Kennedy.
Each is delivered online, two evenings a week, with occasional full-day Saturday classes in-person.
During the pandemic we found that part-time students really like the online element, Kennedy explains. “It means they can live anywhere in the country and just come up to Dublin for a few Saturdays in the year, making it much more flexible and accessible.”
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After leaving school, Finglas woman Gemma Hopkins spent time working as a flight attendant before emigrating to Australia in 2014.
While there “I was lucky in that HR found me”, she says.
She enjoyed working in human resources Down Under so much that when she came home two years later, she knew it was the avenue she wanted to pursue.
She signed up to do a CIPD diploma in HR management at National College of Ireland, graduating the following year. When she heard about the launch of the two-year part-time degree course in HRM strategy and practice some years later, she enrolled.
By that stage she was already working in the field, as a HR administrator for Version1, an IT managed service provider and consulting firm.
“I moved into Version1 on the back of the diploma but I went back to do the degree because, while I knew I was good at HR, I wanted the theory and the qualifications to back up my experience. I didn’t want the lack of a degree to hold me back in the future and I wanted to ensure I was keeping current with professional thinking and best practice,” she explains.
“One of the things I did not expect was the value of the peer learning I got. When you do a part-time degree you are usually with people who are already working in industry, with the war stories to prove it. You just learn so much from your peers.”
She graduated last November and has since been promoted to her current role, as HR People Partner at Version1.
“I used to think I should have studied HR straight from school but now I think it has been a blessing in disguise to do it the way I have, because I think I got so much more from the course than I would have - and you get to apply what you are learning on the job.”
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Kyle Whelan from Blanchardstown, D15, had already worked for a number of years part-time in hospitality by the time he did his Leaving Cert. He was sure he wanted to work in the sector for the rest of his life.
“At 18 I just felt college life wasn’t for me and that not having a degree wasn’t ever going to hold me back,” says Whelan.
He did his Leaving Cert in 2010 and spent a successful decade working his way up the ladder in restaurant management. Just before the pandemic however, he made a career move into recruitment.
The people skills he had honed in his restaurant career made him an attractive prospect to the recruitment sector and he quickly secured work.
There was just one issue. “I always had a little niggle of worry that I didn’t have a degree and that it might hold me back in certain roles,” he admits.
In 2020 he enrolled in the two-year part-time degree course in business management at National College of Ireland.
“Before, the thing that had always stopped me going back to college was the time it would take. But when I saw this, it was, well what’s two years of your life? Nothing really.”
That said, it was tough.
“It was hard but what was great about it was that you do it module by module, so you don’t have to face into three or four exams at the one time at the end. Classes are two nights a week, 6pm to 10pm and the odd full day Saturday,” he says.
Today he works in Hays, a global recruitment company, and has been promoted twice since starting the degree course, which he completed in May 2022.
“From a confidence point of view, having the degree changes how you approach things. I was doing a lot of things right in terms of people management before, I just didn’t know the theory behind it,” he says.
“I now have the option of doing a Master’s degree in HR or some other specialty, which is a very nice option to have,” he says.
The degree cost him €12,000, which he reckons was worth every cent. “I couldn’t speak highly enough of it and the college was so supportive. They make sure that part-time students are very much part of the college experience and are always there to support you,” he says.
Having a degree remains invaluable to those looking to build a career, even those with on-the-job experience. “If you look at a business analyst or HR management role on any of the websites, the first requirement, generally speaking, is a degree,” says Caroline Kennedy.
She adds: “Before you’d get a job for life. Now we all have to change careers multiple times, and education is what enables people to upskill and be agile. With these courses you also get a ready-made network of people all working in an area of interest to you, so the benefits are not just academic.”
On Wednesday, 30th August, National College of Ireland is hosting an online webinar from 6-7pm. Hear from faculty and students on the benefits of getting your degree in two years. To learn more about the part-time degree courses or to register for the webinar visit ncirl.ie