CAO change-of-mind options in MTU — opportunities to define your own life's journey
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Nobody could accuse Munster Technological University (MTU) of being an ivory tower. While it offers excellence in education, it places a strong emphasis on providing career-focused courses which are applicable to the real world.
In addition, students are encouraged to fulfil their potential with a wide variety of options available to encourage innovation, entrepreneurship, community engagement and personal development. For CAO applicants making final decisions ahead of the July 1st ‘change of mind’ deadline, it’s worth considering the huge breadth and quality of courses available across MTU’s six campuses in Cork and Kerry.
Michael Loftus, Vice President for External Affairs at MTU, draws attention to new courses which will be offered in the coming year. The university has plans to introduce a new mechanical and manufacturing engineering course and a new physical education studies with business course in Kerry. It has also recently added a smart product engineering course to its offering in Bishopstown.
Mr Loftus points out that there is a lot of focus in MTU courses on the creation of multi-disciplinary teams.
“Many of our courses are designed around the notion of multi-disciplinary working, bringing students from different backgrounds together with the idea of producing products and services that will have a value to customers. We bring together our scientists, our engineers, our business students and our arts students so they can work together creatively on new ideas," he said.
"What we’re endeavouring to do is to replicate what graduates will experience in the real world; working with others, hearing different views and opinions and broadening their horizons. It’s about giving them the opportunity to develop to their full potential and maximising their chances of success in the world at large after graduating," said Mr Loftus.
“MTU places a strong focus on supporting student entrepreneurship for students across all disciplines. We have supported the development of more than 500 start-up companies to date and we provide entrepreneurship training to over 1,000 students on an annual basis. We fund a number of student entrepreneurs to take their ideas forward with many of them supported by the O’Regan Scholarship Programme, which is funded by Brendan O’Regan, one of our graduate entrepreneurs.”
Taking the long view, Mr Loftus says that if we look forward to ten or fifteen years’ time, “we don’t even have titles for many of the roles and jobs that will be available then. In MTU, we’re focussed on ensuring that our students will have a broad base of development that will allow them to create their own jobs in the future.”
How AI (Artificial Intelligence) will affect the jobs market “is an open question at this point in time. Without doubt, AI will have an impact on the jobs market in the future. If we look back over the course of time, automation has had a significant impact on jobs. Computer science and digital technologies have had a big impact on jobs in the past. AI will be the next chapter in the influence of digitalisation on our work. I think it will be significant, but it has yet to be fully quantified and characterised.”
With a student population of 18,000 across its campuses, MTU is growing all the time. It offers over 120 CAO courses and provides a comprehensive range of pathways which span from apprenticeships to PhDs, and from taught courses to in-depth research, innovation and entrepreneurship options.
“There is a strong, healthy and vibrant interest in our courses, driven by their relevance and the value people are attaching to an education at MTU.”
Higher education is the preserve of the majority these days. “If you look back thirty or forty years ago, the participation rate in higher education was about 20%. Today, it’s well over 60%. Industry is increasingly looking for graduates who have the skills and attributes needed to deliver business success on an ongoing basis. But industry is also looking for apprentices. There are great careers to be had on that pathway. MTU is a huge provider of apprenticeship education and is very proud to do so.”
MTU offers a wide range of international opportunities for its students and will be expanding this area of its activities significantly over the coming years. The university was recently very successful on the international front with nine other European universities, having been approved to establish the Ingenium European University Alliance.
“The idea is that a number of large university alliances across Europe can compete with the best and largest universities in the world. There are 44 of these alliances now approved across Europe," said Michael Loftus. "MTU is a member of the Ingenium Alliance. It will provide our students over the coming years with the opportunity to develop their own degrees to go and study across nine other partner universities in places like Germany, France, Romania, Bulgaria, Finland, Italy, Sweden and Greece and get an international experience designed into their programme of studies.
"A key part of MTU strategy is that it’s international in its outlook. We want the international experience to be available to as many of our students as possible so that when they graduate, they’ll have a comfort and a confidence in relation to working internationally, having been exposed to different systems of education around the world and to different cultures.”
MTU is also developing its facilities at a tremendous rate. MTU recently opened a new state-of-the-art multi-purpose sports arena on its Bishopstown campus. Work has also commenced on the development of a new Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) building on the Kerry North Campus and a Learning Resource Centre in Bishopstown. A number of additional developments are also in the pipeline which will greatly enhance the student experience at MTU.
Mr Loftus’s advice to students is to “follow your interests and gather as much information as possible in relation to where the employment market will be in three or four year’s time. If you can blend your interests with informed decisions about employment trends, you’ll probably have as solid a base as you can establish for making your choice.”
For full details on MTU’s courses, the MTU CAO hub provides lots of relevant details and can be accessed at https://www.mtu.ie/cao/.