UCC Introduce 6 New Government-Funded Courses to Kick Start your Career

Looking to Kick Start your career? In the article below, UCC outline how their recently launched courses, funded under the Government’s Human Capital Initiative (HCI) education fund, could help you achive your goals. 

There has never been a better time to set yourself up for success. If you are looking to change career, to upskill or accelerate your employment prospects, this is the year to invest in your future with University College Cork’s (UCC) funded postgraduate courses. Places are either free or 90% funded for those seeking to upskill or reskill under the Government’s Human Capital Initiative (HCI) education fund.

Focused on areas of skills shortages and emerging technologies, these funded courses are ideal for job seekers or returners looking for new opportunities in the job market and recent graduates or working professionals looking to develop their expertise in emerging fields. These full-time courses offer the perfect opportunity to kick-start, enhance or change your career in a number of diverse fields such as design thinking, translation, languages, localisation, sustainability and the environment, chemical, pharmaceuticals and biopharmaceuticals.

UCC offers six programmes to choose from including the Higher Diploma in Languages and Global Software Business and the Postgraduate Diploma in Innovation through Design Thinking.

The Higher Diploma in Languages and Global Software Business is the fruit of a collaboration between the UCC School of Languages, Literatures and Cultures and the Department of Business Information Systems. It answers an urgent need in the Irish job market and provides language graduates with an enhanced skill set that will enable them to enter Information Technology and Software industries.

We know from Katherine Fitzpatrick (Director of International Relations at Cork Chamber) and Siobhán Bradley (Regional Skills Manager, South-West at Department of Education and Skills) that the Software and IT industry in Ireland needs language graduates to drive the business end of things; the localisation of a product, for example, demands specific linguistic and cultural competencies.

According to one report, The Language Services Market: 2018 published by Common Sense Advisory (CSA), it was estimated that the global market for outsourced language services and technology would reach US $46.52 billion in 2018 and US$56.18 billion by 2021. CSA Research’s data has long and conclusively proven that customers are much more likely to purchase and consume products in their own language.

As organisations both large and small make their products and services available in more languages, CSA predicts that the demand for global language service providers and technology industry will continue to grow and localisation is one of the major components of this industry.

Through the Business Information Systems modules and the expertise of their staff, you will have the opportunity to develop competencies in relation to the ICT, software sales, technical support and localisation skills which are necessary for managing global relationships in the ICT sector.

You will learn the language of software business, of problem-solving and the importance of the localisation industry. The localisation industry is the practice of translating and adapting a product or a service to a particular language, culture, and geographic market has emerged as key to global marketing. The programme also has input from industry leaders in the region.

At UCC, we offer more languages than other universities in Ireland. On the Higher Diploma in Languages and Global Software Business, you will develop strong linguistic competency, you will be trained to think critically, possess strong intercultural skills, and have the ability to respond creatively to intellectual questions. You will engage with a notion of global citizenship and will be ready to make an essential contribution to Ireland’s strategic global positioning as well as the need for humanities graduates equipped for a multilingual workplace. Languages are key to deepening knowledge and understanding — they open up doors to a global world.

In a recent special report on languages, published by the Irish Times, Claire McGee, Senior Education and Innovation Policy Executive with Ibec, stated that demand for language skills involves more than linguistic competency: ‘in business development roles there may be a need for language proficiency and cultural awareness’.

Ireland is already a leading player with the software sales and IT world, but it needs more language graduates. Our graduates from this programme have secured fantastic roles in global companies such as Red Hat, Cloudbeds, Nuance, MicroFocus, Amazon and TikTok, to mention but a few.

As businesses are facing significant challenges to build sustainability into their future business models and practices, the need for agility and innovation appears relentless. As a result, innovation professionals with the skills to tackle these challenges are in demand across all sectors.

The Postgraduate Diploma in Innovation through Design Thinking is designed for individuals looking to increase their own innovation capabilities or organisations looking to increase the innovativeness of their employees. It is delivered online by leading design thinking experts with invited speakers from companies such as Pfizer, AIB, Fexco, Citrix and McKesson. In addition to world-class content, the participants receive expert mentorship while they undertake projects in organisations or communities.

The programme enhances the data, digital, and design literacies of the participants, thereby ensuring they develop new and more agile and innovative ways of doing business. At the core of the programme is design thinking, which is emerging as the world’s most powerful approach to establishing dynamic, human-centred, purpose-led innovation. The programme educates a new generation of design thinkers to work across a wide spectrum of settings and sectors.

A 2020 study entitled Together for Design: Digital, Product and Strategic Design Skills of the Future, published by the Expert Group on Future Skills Need, predicts that: “By 2025, occupations in digital, product and strategic design could see a growth between 21,000 to 33,000, accounting for 2.8% of all jobs in Ireland”.

Through this programme, relevant skills development will be enabled through facilitating active engagement with industry experts. As part of “industry-in-the classroom” work-based learning projects, participants are provided with the practical experience of undertaking a project in collaboration with external partners and applying skills and theories acquired on the programme to real live issues encountered within a business and societal context.

As a graduate of the Postgraduate Diploma in Innovation through Design Thinking you will be equipped to apply design thinking in complex settings to address real-world challenges. You will have the ability to evaluate digital trends and technologies to develop innovations for optimum impact and you will understand how to design sustainable data strategies and promote a data-driven mindset.

You will get diverse opportunities to develop and hone your problem-solving skills, through individual and group work projects, to address real-world complex problems, and you will also develop key skills in managing the design, build and evaluation of prototype solutions in organisations. This postgraduate programme also provides a pathway to Masters and PhD level qualifications.

For more information, graduate testimonials and to see where our HCI courses can take you and your career, please visit: www.ucc.ie/hci Applications are now open, but places are limited and this is the final year of funding so don’t miss out on this great opportunity, apply today!