Ciara Conlon, Senior Manager, Digital Experience Programs at VMware

The H.Dip in Cloud Computing at MTU is a fast-paced industry supported IT conversion course covering a wide range of highly desirable IT skills. Coming from a town planning background, I had absolutely no training or expertise in IT but wanted to up-skill in a high employment industry due to the downturn in construction-related activity during the recession. This course is superbly organised and ties in with industry certifications such as VCP and ISM. I was lucky enough to get a permanent full-time position as a Technical Support Engineer with VMWare one month prior to completion of my course, and within a year was promoted to a Project Management role in the Global Technical Support Team. Almost 9 years on, I now work as a Senior Manager in the Global Services Strategy and Operations Team at VMware. I can definitely say that completing this course transformed my career opportunities and turned my career in a new and exciting direction with endless opportunities. Thank you MTU!

KEVIN GARTLAND

My background is as an architect in private practice. I watched over many years the exponential growth of IT services in Cork before asking, why not me?
The course allowed me to train in the space of one calendar year to a standard that is well regarded by IT firms. The timetable allowed my family life to continue more or less uninterrupted. I admired the intensive format of the course which covered computing basics and escalated to covering valuable skillets in Cloud Computing Storage and Virtualisation. I was also very enthused at the hands-on nature of learning, with a huge proportion of time dedicated to labs and project work. I have the highest regard for the teaching staff who co-ordinated and taught the various modules. I would also note that the calibre of students who enrolled was excellent, which fostered healthy competition, collaboration, and drove high standards for all. Upon completion of the course, I gained full time employment with a generous benefits package at a well-regarded cloud computing firm in Cork. One of the reasons that I got an interview was the quality of my end of year project which I printed and submitted. The HDip education and proven ability to learn intensively allowed me to get my foot in the door and apply previous life experience. I quickly progressed and within six months of starting manage two separate technical support teams which are quickly growing. I see the Higher Diploma in Cloud Computing as a gateway into the intensive and lucrative IT industry. Taking part in the HDip Cloud Computing is probably one of the smartest decisions I have ever made. Not a week goes by that I am not grateful for the opportunity that it has presented, and the transformative effect it has had on the lives of myself and my family.

Michael McAleer, Software Engineer 3 at NGINX

After a long spell spent trying to find my place in the professional workplace when I completed my BSc in Multimedia Design, I decided it was time to draw a line under it and go back to College again with the intention of upskilling in a more relevant field when career opportunities were few and far between. I had spent some time researching current trends in IT and enrolled in the HDip in Cloud Computing and immediately could see the advantages of such a course. Within the space of a year, I had been trained in various programming languages, networking, virtualization, storage management, agile development to name a few. I was fortunate enough to get hired by Dell EMC before I even finished the course, which is testament to how good the content of the course is. I have taken what I learned in my one year course and have built upon it significantly, being placed within the middle of an Agile Open Source development team working primarily on block storage functionality for OpenStack. Even with a job, I have been inundated with job offers from both Ireland and abroad, even though no job applications have been sent out. The strength of the skill set obtained from CIT and my HDip in Cloud Computing alone I believe is what has attracted such interest. I have every intention of going back to CIT to advance my knowledge in Cloud Computing through their Masters programme, with the success the HDip has had for me, I am intrigued to see what a Masters has in store!

Ciara Stacke, DevOps Engineer at F5(NGINX)

Coming from an Arts background, I had little to no IT or technical experience. I chose the Higher Diploma in Cloud Computing to upskill and break into a high employment industry. The course was highly demanding and challenging, but absolutely worth the effort. I had a job lined up before I finished the course, and started in a permanent position as an Associate Software Engineer in Dell EMC less than two weeks after completing my exams. The course covered a broad range of computing knowledge, from Operating Systems, to Networking, to Programming, as well as specialised Cloud Computing technologies. I am certainly utilising the knowledge I gained in the course daily in my job, particularly that gained from the programming, storage technologies, and virtualisation modules. Because the cloud computing modules were industry specific, it really gave me a head-start when I started working. In addition to the course content, the level of support and expertise of the lecturing staff is second to none, and they were key in helping me to achieve the results I did. I really feel that this course has provided me with the knowledge and skills required to excel in this industry.