What do todays workers say about the subjects they chose when they did their Leaving Cert (or equivalent exam)?
By clicking on the job titles from the list of interviews below (approx 150), you will be able to read what each person answered to the question "What subjects did you take in school and how have these influenced your career path?" You can sort the list by clicking on the column titles (Sort by Title / Sort by Employer).
To view descriptions of each Leaving Cert subject, click here.
Trevor Laffan, An Garda Síochána
What subjects did you take in school and how have these influenced your career path?
One of my biggest gripes about my time in school was the complete lack of any form of career guidance. I left school after the intermediate certificate to take a trade simply because I never considered that I had the ability to do anything else.
Back in the seventies you either took a trade, worked in the civil service, the bank or went to college. I took the trade like my father and his father before him. I would have loved to have studied English and it was the only subject I was any good at. I think that's partly the reason I went to UCC as a mature student, to prove a point to myself that I could actually do it.
So the short answer is that nothing I studied in school influenced me or prepared me for what I'm doing now and that includes the many years I spent trying to remember the Latin for “table” and “farmer” and bits about Hannibal crossing the Alps!
