What Students Say
Likes
- The infrastructure of the college made it feel nice to be able to come to college every day.
- Facilities provided, TCD has very good career consultant. And there are many study rooms which you can book for group meeting or just exam prep.
- The one year course duration, it's nice to be able to complete a masters degree within 1 year.
Dislikes
- The selection of students, I feel like they could have refined the selection of students a bit better, it often felt like I was one of the smartest in the room out of a class of 100 people.
- My course was mostly graded by group projects, Sometimes I personally had to carry the workload for the entire project.
- Professors were a bit too lenient, I feel like a lot of students settled for the bare minimum in projects because of how calm and relaxed the Professors were.
Course Curriculum
- I would say the difficulty level was moderate; it was 60 per percent Theoretical and 40 per cent practical.
- The most positive would be the professors, in my opinion; I had a very good time with them.
- The negative aspect would be that this isn't through my personal experience, as I would say I was on good terms with everyone, but from what I have heard, there can be a lot of problems between students and classmates, problems that you wouldn't expect for students in their masters to have.
- I had 1 class per day; each class was 3 hours and we had 3 to 4 classes per week. About the timings, it depends on what batch you are in. I was in the morning batch so my classes were mostly from 9 to 12 or 12 to 3; for the evening batch it would be 12 to 3 or 3 to 6.
- 105 is the average number of students in my class. I would say around 45 were Indian students in my course.
Admission Experience
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I applied for the following universities:
- Trinity College Dublin – Accepted
- University College Dublin – Rejected
- I think I was rejected from UCD because I applied through Idp consulting, and since I did it through them, my application fees were basically free, so I think there might have been a situation where candidates who paid for their application fees were accepted. I do know a couple of people in UCD; none of them used Idp services, I'm pretty sure I also applied very near to the deadline.
- I chose this college because even if I had been accepted into UCD, I would have still joined TCD solely for its rankings.
- As for the admission process, It was pretty straightforward: submit personal details, submit an Statement of purpose, Cover letter, Letter of recommendation and Resume, and then after 3 to 4 weeks, I got my results and I had to pay a deposit of 500 euros to confirm my seat.
- The eligibility criteria for admission For both TCD and UCD, only IELTS is needed; the minimum score they require is 6.5 but I received a score of 8.5.
- Overall admission experience :
- Well My admission process was very smooth; they had a personal portal where I was able to pay the required fees as if I was ordering something from Amazon. It was very easy and instant. I went through consultancy; they explained each and every single step to me. I was given a list of documents that I needed to prepare for my college application and visa application. I started my application process during October 2023 and received admission during December 2023.
It was the fact that I was able to get a master's degree within 1 year and also it was around 20 Lakhs. I was also intrigued by the college ranking. TCD is ranked 81st in the World.
- Well My admission process was very smooth; they had a personal portal where I was able to pay the required fees as if I was ordering something from Amazon. It was very easy and instant. I went through consultancy; they explained each and every single step to me. I was given a list of documents that I needed to prepare for my college application and visa application. I started my application process during October 2023 and received admission during December 2023.
- I applied in late November 2023 and received my offer letter in the middle of December 2023 and had time to confirm my seat before the 1st week of January 2024.
Faculty
- We had 7 professors for a class of 105 students. Most of the professors were able to get back in touch with the students who reached out to them, but there were maybe 1 to 2 professors who sometimes weren't able to reply or replied late.
- The teaching methodology is very vast; you can tell that the professors have a lot of knowledge in what they teach and they are very updated in what they teach. Most of the professors always gave real-world examples for the topics they taught and sometimes would even answer questions with real-world examples. However, I would really say what I learnt is enough to secure a job in my field, as I applied for graduate programmes, which are jobs for freshers, basically.
- No the faculty member normally does not assist, but it is possible to reach out to them for references but I do not think they would be very helpful about it. We have a separate career consultant who helps us with personal networking and references.
- I would say I liked all of them equally; they all brought the same amount of high knowledge for each subject and they were all nice and kind.
Campus Life
- There is only one campus which is located in the city centre, but there are multiple buildings within the campus.
- There are multiple libraries and there is the sports centre where students can use the gym and swimming pool for free.
- There are many events that are hosted in Trinity, but the most famous one is Trinity Ball.
- So, a couple of weeks after you join college, there will be an event held all over the campus where you can sign up for multiple clubs like literature clubs and many sports clubs.
Part Time Jobs
- There aren't that many opportunities for these positions like TA, RA and DA but there are opportunities to work in the college labs. If you apply at the right time when the positions are open, you can easily get the part-time job.
- Base pay: 13.50 Euros per hour for TA/RA/DA positions. The most possible part-time job that is available in college is the lab assistant job. You normally get around 10 hours per week. 20 hours is the maximum hours of work allowed per week
- It is extremely difficult to secure a part-time job; referrals give you a much better chance and you will constantly have to apply online or either in person.
- The most that companies, stores and restaurants pay is around 14 euros per hour. It is extremely difficult to secure a part-time job; referrals give you a much better chance and you will constantly have to apply online or either in person. The usual process is applying online through Indeed for part-time jobs using experience from previous part-time jobs (Normally Indians do not have experience in part-time jobs so they mostly use fake experience in their resumes). If you are lucky, you will get a call or an email for an interview, which would be very simple; they would just ask competency-based questions.
Placement
- Out of a batch of 100 students, maybe around 30 students are able to secure a job.
- The average salary range that most students in your program can expect to earn upon graduation
- For freshers: 32,000 euros per year
- Experience: 40,000 to 55,000 euros per year
- Most students find jobs through LinkedIn and GradIreland. There are Career fairs where students can attend to learn more about the companies in Ireland. But your biggest help would be referrals.
- Companies where they have been placed and their job roles.
- There are a few people who have gotten jobs in these companies:
- Bank of Ireland
- PTSB
- Three
- Major companies that hire graduates from your program
- Bank of Ireland
Accommodation
- I mainly used an app called Daft, which is meant for rental apartments in Ireland, but I was lucky enough to find my accommodation through whatsapp groups. I would say whatsapp groups are the best way to get directly in contact with owners and landlords.
- 550 per month was the monthly rent for my accommodation, including Wi-Fi and electricity .
- It just took a lot of time and constant effort to find accommodation since I decided to go for a shared apartment since it would be way cheaper than a student accommodation.
- I would say trying to find a shared apartment would be a better idea since you would be paying a lot less compared to a student accommodation, which would be around 1100 euros per month.
- My accommodation is 20 kms from college; it takes me 35 to 40 minutes to go by train, but by car it is 20 minutes.
- Most Indian students do stay near college, but they pay double the rent to save up on time and comfort.
Exams
- Only IELTS is required for admission to my university or college.
- Sop, Lor, Cv, letter and Passport are necessary to complete the admission process at my university or college.
- There was no interview for my application.
Fees
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The full breakdown of fees for the entire course –
- College Tuition: 22 Lakhs
- Living + Groceries: 12 lakhs per year if accommodation is in a rented apartment.
- The fees charged –
- It is charged in 2 payments: 1st semester, 50 per cent of the fees; 2nd semester, the other 50 per cent of the fees.
- An estimate of your monthly expenses:
- Rent: 550 per month (Euros)
- Transportation: 50 per month (Euros)
- Groceries: 100 per month (Euros)
- Also, for expenses, I would recommend that students buy extra luggage weight allowance to be able to bring everything they need to Ireland, like utensils, pans, pots and much more. It's definitely worth doing so rather than planning to buy things in Ireland.
- Weekly grocery shopping can be cheap if you stick to supermarkets like Lidl and Aldi, maybe around 15 to 30 euros a week. I suggest students opt for the 48 sim card since I have had no bad experiences with it when it comes to network connectivity. It is also the cheapest Sim provider in Ireland.
Scholarship
- No, my course was not eligible for a scholarship. When asked the reason why, we were not given any details about it.
- No, we did not receive any award amount for the scholarship.
- None of my batchmates received scholarships or other forms of financial aid .
- I would say around 100 to 150 students per year over multiple masters programs and the typical award amount is from 2000 euros to 4000 euros.