Peer2Peer has opened Clodagh's eyes up to all the opportunities the college have available to help students from counselling to finances
Clodagh Doyle from Carlow and a past pupil of Scoil Chonglais, Baltinglass, is a current third year WIT student in the Bachelor of Business (Honours) course. She is also part of the Student Life and Learning Peer2Peer monitoring programme.
Why did you choose to study the Bachelor of Business (Honours) at WIT?
Choosing to study at WIT was my number one choice from the first time I started looking at colleges. Although my course choices varied from Criminal Justice to Accounting, my decision to study on the Bachelor of Business program was made after a few weeks of my contemplation of deferring my offers until the following year, until I fully decided what I wanted to do
With the Open Day in the WIT Arena and the information evening held in the college they were incredibly helpful to show me what I was going to be spending my days doing and my decision to accept the offer when it came in August and begin studying was definitely the perfect decision. BBS was the perfect opportunity to experience all of the choices I could end up studying before making my final decision.
Since beginning on the course it has been more than I originally expected. With BBS allowing me to study all aspects of Business before fully deciding in year three which stream I seen myself enjoying the most, I could find out which areas I was most confident in and which I would find more difficult than others.
The BBS programme has allowed me to change my career focus from Accountancy to what I really enjoy doing, Human Resource Management. Between the lecturers directly involved in the course to the staff in the Student Support and Business offices, they've all made the studying and decisions for the course that bit easier to become comfortable in.
As a third year in the course, I definitely feel that the Bachelor of Business was the perfect choice for me because I had the chance to experience what each avenue would be like and it has definitely opened my eyes to what I see myself doing on completion of it.
What are the highlights of your college experience at WIT?
The biggest highlight of college experience so far is getting to meet the best group of friends from my course who subsequently have made my transition from a relatively medium sized secondary school to a larger college environment a large bit easier. It may not seem like a huge deal to many people but to be 17 starting college and living in a new city where you only really know your family was a huge decision. To go from being worried that I would be lost in myself to becoming more in tune with what I want, while also having the best backing from my best friends is a big deal, especially to me.
Another highlight of my college experience so far is being a part of the peer mentoring program lead by the Student Life and Learning Team. With them being instrumental in helping me settle into college in the beginning to me later becoming a peer mentor to help others in the same position as me, I have been able to become even more heavily involved in college life and interacted with people in other courses throughout the college too.
How has the Peer2Peer participation benefited your college experience?
Having a Peer mentor when I first started college had a hugely positive impact on my starting out. With me personally being quite young starting college, it helped to have older students who had experienced what I was doing and going to be doing, while also having a friendly face to be able to smile at and say hello to in the halls.
My decision to become a Peer Mentor was an easy decision for me, purely because of how good of an experience I had in first year with my mentors and because of how accommodating and informative the SLL team were and continue to be, especially through my first year with all of the adjustments we had to make.
Peer2Peer has opened my eyes up to all the opportunities the college have available to help students from counselling to financial, even to just checking in on us as mentors if we ever needed anything.
With this semester being the most different we have experienced in our time, having the team backing us and keeping us informed, and even getting to having zoom meetings with them in the first few weeks, has made my remote learning that bit more bearable. It has thought me how to be more confident in the way I do things and to never be afraid to ask questions or make suggestions because all ideas and suggestions are taken on board. This has also helped in lectures where I would have been previously worried about asking things in a public setting for fear of sounding silly.
They have given me the opportunity to stretch my friend group beyond business and into other courses so I have a larger and more diverse group of friends than when I started college.
I cannot thank them enough for giving me the opportunity to help others in the way they have helped me through these last few years.
Why would you recommend studying in Waterford/WIT?
Waterford has always been my favourite place to be, from a young age. I was always attracted to staying here from staying with my family during the summers so much that it was top of my list to study down here too.
WIT was the best place for me because the courses allowed me to start on something that could allow me to enjoy myself and learn more, before making the big decisions.
I would recommend studying in WIT because the lecturers on the course as well as the SLL team have hugely made my transition into college that much easier and have made me fully confident in my future projections for my career.
WIT is a highly diverse and inclusive college, and I'm delighted to be able to study here.
What advice would you give to anyone considering the Bachelor of Business (Honours) course?
With the BBS course being such a diverse course and getting to study all the key aspects of business specialties before deciding on a specialty, it would definitely be ideal for anyone who like me, found it hard to decide at 17/18 exactly what they want to with their life.
Many courses in colleges across Ireland and the world are very specific and will allow you to study one thing, like Accounting, Commerce or Marketing, with very little option to learn about other aspects. With the Bachelor of Business, there is a bigger opportunity to learn all of them before you make the big decisions that may result in you not enjoying your chosen path of study.
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