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STEM career opportunities to consider before summer ends

28 Jul 2023

Whether you are into additive manufacturing or you’re a young person looking for your first STEM career opportunity, here are a few pointers.

The middle of the summer (or the tail end if you want to be pessimistic) is perhaps the best time to sit yourself down and start planning for new career opportunities. Late August and early September are when a lot of organisations start rolling out their graduate programmes, so getting ahead of the curve and scoping out what kinds of programmes and positions you want to apply for is crucial.

The autumn is a very competitive time for the hiring market because everyone is shaking off the summer cobwebs and refocusing their energies on work. In recent weeks, some organisations have put out calls for fresh talent to come on board. If you apply now, you might just get lucky come September or October.

Here are a few of the latest sci-tech career opportunities, from a new additive manufacturing course to a long-established student experience programme at Huawei.

Huawei Seeds For the Future

The tech giant’s Seeds programme is aimed at current third-level students who want a taster of what it is like to work in tech. This year, for the first time, it is also open to students who are studying STEM subjects on post-Leaving Certificate courses.

Learners will take courses in areas that Huawei specialises in such as 5G, smart cities, cloud computing, AI and internet of things. They will get a chance to enter Huawei’s Tech4Good global competition which challenges entrants to design a piece of technology to solve a social problem.

As Huawei is a Chinese company, participants also get to dabble in aspects of Chinese culture such as food and music. The eight-day-long programme is due to kick off on 25 September this year, so now is an ideal time to get your application in if you’re interested in taking part. One thing to note is it is entirely virtual.

Only 30 students will be chosen to complete the programme, so it is fairly competitive. To apply, students will need their CV, a transcript of their academic records and an essay of 400-600 words or a two to three-minute motivation video reflecting their interests and why they think they should be chosen to take part. They should send these documents to seedsireland@huawei.com by 20 September.

3D printing courses at SETU

South East Technological University (SETU) began its Level 7 part-time 3D printing course last year. Earlier in the summer, it opened applications for its second intake of students. Also known as additive manufacturing, 3D printing is a growing technology which has many applications across multiple industries like medtech, aerospace, precision engineering and agri-tech. The 12-week course will start in September and it will be delivered in a blended format.

From October, SETU will be running a fully online flexible learning course called Introduction to Additive Manufacturing.

Generation Innovation work experience

If you are a teenager interested in embarking on a STEM career or you know someone who fits this description, check out Generation Innovation. The career development programme run by Northern Ireland’s Catalyst is aimed at 17 and 18-year-olds who want to get a feel for working with entrepreneurs in the tech space.

Applications are open for the next intake of the programme in 2024 so you’ll have plenty of time to prepare yourself. It is free to attend and participants will be paired up with experienced people from companies like EY and Coca-Cola to learn the ropes of being in business.

Liberty IT hiring in Galway

Liberty IT announced it was opening a hub in Galway only a few weeks ago. It said it was hiring up to 100 engineers and other tech roles so if you’re looking for an opportunity in the west, you should consider applying for one of the positions.

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Blathnaid O’Dea
By Blathnaid O’Dea

Blathnaid O’Dea worked as a Careers reporter until 2024, coming from a background in the Humanities. She likes people, pranking, pictures of puffins – and apparently alliteration.

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