UCD brews Java skills to boost tech sector


10 Apr 2009

As part of a three-pronged initiative to reinvigorate the technology sector in response to the National Recovery Plan, University College Dublin (UCD) is running low-cost Java courses for unemployed programmers looking to up-skill.

These courses will run in two blocks at a cost of €45 (in comparison to actual cost of €995) to help retrain unemployed programmers, as well as coders unsure of their job security in the current economic environment.

The Java courses were developed specifically for this purpose and will kick off in May 2009.

“These courses are top-quality and are currently being given to IBM Dublin,” said Professor John Murphy from the UCD School of Computer Science and Informatics.

“There are programmers out there who may only be trained in their firm’s proprietary language or perhaps a legacy language – maybe they have little or no experience or object-oriented programming at all – and this is their chance to upskill in a very affordable way.”

Java is the dominant language in the industry right now, both across large and smaller technology firms, explained Murphy.

This is part of UCD’s three-fold response to the National Recovery Plan, the first element being the introduction of a master’s course in negotiated learning, where students can come along and take the modules they like – a flexible approach to learning over time and duration.

The second element is a conversion diploma for those looking to cross over into technology.

“Right now, everyone in the public service is trying to see what they can do to help the sector,” Murphy said.

While interest in undergraduate computer science courses, both in UCD and around the country, historically peaked during the dotcom era, Murphy said there is hope, and that the last few years have been proof of this, with interest in the sector slowly but surely beginning to recover.

By Marie Boran