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“When I left school I didn’t know what I wanted to do so I worked in bars, waitressing for a while. Then I got a job in the hotel I’m in now, in the bar, and I loved it. I met a guy who was doing the Trainee Manager Development Programme in the hotel and started talking to him about the course. I really liked the idea of earning while I was at college. I had been working for a few years and had got used to earning money.
I also liked the idea of going to college part time and getting on-the-job experience rather than learning a lot of theory and trying to apply it when working in the hotel; I had a lot of practical experience when I graduated.
The course is run from January to October in GMIT – the campus is in Galway, but we only have to go there for one block of 4 weeks of lectures and then two other tutorial days in the year, so we were in college for one month at a time. I stayed in Gleann Na Ri, apartments situated about a ten minute walk from the college. There are lots of students from the college living there. GMIT do have an accommodation department which can help if you need any information.
I thought it was a great college, the lecturers loved the TMDP Programme and really encourage you to go on and do the extra year after, to get the degree in hotel management.
We do 5 subjects a year - we did marketing, accounting, business simulation (simulating business using a computer programme), law and human resource management among others, and my favourite was human resource management. We had class tests for each subject that were worth 10% and assignments which were worth 30% and we also had exams in October which would make up the rest. It was hard to get some of the assignments done because we were given them in April and they had to be handed in by June. May is busy in the hotels, but if you just sit down and do them they are easy enough.
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