At the end of 3rd Year in Summerhill College, I had to make a decision whether or not to do the Transition Year (TY) before I started into the Senior Cycle of secondary school. I decided to give it a go because my older sister, Chelsey, had done it before and she really liked it.

At the start of September, I was introduced to TY by the teacher who would be running the year at our school. It sounded exciting.

On September 8, I knew I had to start my first day of work experience. I was a bit nervous that I wouldn’t find somewhere but I was grateful that the Sligo Weekender took me in. The staff were very nice to me.

I was very lucky with the three work experience options I choose – the Sligo Weekender, Mercy Primary and StoryLab. If I was to pick a job right now, I wouldn’t mind working with any of them as they have been very helpful to me.

During my time in the Mercy Primary, I was helping a teacher in Senior Infants; supervising the children and helping them out when they needed assistance. I enjoyed my time there as I was able to experience what it’s like to be one of the people helping out in a classroom rather than being a student.

While I was in StoryLab, I learned how graphic design is used to make branding, how social media can get people’s attention about business, and how stories are written. I went to the filming of a promotional video for a company called AVA that rents media equipment for meetings. I learned a lot from the experience. I didn’t know a company like that existed!

As well as the work experience, during TY, I went on a shopping trip to Dublin and to a farm to see lots of different animals. We have an upcoming end-of-year trip to Italy which I am very excited about. I have never been to Italy!

Some of the other opportunities that I was given in TY included trying new classes that I had never done before, like computer science and business. There were other things, like workshops on 3D Printing, that I found a bit challenging but still fun at the same time.

We were also given the opportunity to do ‘Life Skills’ in which we studied a particular topic for three or four weeks, such as learning how to do CPR and sign language, and other interesting things like that.

During TY, I have been able to experience what it would be like to work in a few different environments and I am so thankful I had the option of doing the year.

I would recommend TY because you get to have new experiences such as new classes, work experience, workshops and trips. So, my advice for someone who is considering TY is to try everything because you don’t know if you’ll like it until you try!

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