Taking the road less travelled can make all the difference

Students across the country are set for another nail-biting day as they gear up for the first round of CAO offers, which will be released from 2pm tomorrow.

The importance placed on the CAO can feel enormous, and understandably so. After months of exams, study and sacrifice, it can be easy to view this moment as the ultimate reward or punishment. But, as many students will tell you in hindsight, the CAO offer is just one of many paths that you can take after the Leaving Cert.

It reminds me of that poem many of us had to study in English: The Road Not Taken, by Robert Frost. It starts with two roads diverging in a yellow wood. The subject of the poem decides to take “the one less travelled by”, and notes that doing this “made all the difference”.

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Taking the road less travelled can make all the difference

Maybe there’s a benefit to rote learning all those poetry quotes, because that line has stuck with me, and it turns out to be true for so many people. The course you didn’t think you wanted, the backup plan you never expected to use, these things can shape your path in ways you never saw coming.

I was reminded of this poem during a recent conversation with my good friend Saoirse. We’ve known each other since our first year of secondary school, and while reminiscing about our own Leaving Cert experiences, I remembered how certain she was that she wanted to study primary teaching. She had it down as her top two choices on the CAO. But when her offer came, it was for a course further down her list, Religious Education and Music at DCU, which sets you up to be a secondary school teacher.

She cried for hours, and felt worse after hearing that most of our friends had gotten their first choice offers. But she gave the course a chance, keeping the idea of doing a master’s in primary education in her back pocket.

Fast forward to this week: Saorise has just started her first job as a fully qualified secondary school teacher – teaching music, religion, CSPE, SPHE and life skills. She is absolutely ecstatic about it. “I got what I needed, even though I didn’t realise it at the time”, she told me.

Sometimes, the scenic route gets you exactly where you need to be, even if it doesn’t look like it at the start.

Amy Moore spoke with Cian O’Connell for our Smart Choices supplement (out with The Irish Times today). Amy missed out on her first choice on the CAO, psychology at NCI, by just 11 points. She decided to pursue a PLC in psychology, which gave her the confirmation that she wanted to study the subject, and a second shot at the CAO.

This year, while she missed NCI again in round zero offers, she secured a place on the BA in Psychology at Maynooth, and she’s planning to continue on to a master’s.

She said doing the PLC helped her “learn how college works by the independence it gives you and how drastically different it is from secondary school”.

So, whether your offer tomorrow is what you hoped for or not, remember that it doesn’t have to define your future.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by it all, you’re not the only one. The world is your oyster, but having unlimited choices ahead can feel equally as stressful as having none. That’s why Peter McGuire has broken down further education and training options outside of the CAO, and it’s as easy as ABC – literally. You can find his A-Z of options in today’s Smart Choices supplement, available in the paper or online.

Also in the Smart Choices supplement, Brian Mooney highlights the growing appeal of apprenticeships. Many students don’t realise that completing an apprenticeship can earn you a QQI award, which in some cases, equates to a master’s (Level 9) or a PhD (Level 10).

Our CAO helpdesk, staffed by expert guidance counsellors, is back open tomorrow from 1pm to answer all your queries.

Best of luck!