Page 36 - Linkline Summer 2018

commuting for the course It is not ideal, but he managed it perfectly However, you have to be here all day long We start the classes at 8:30am and we finish around 4:30pm
Some of the assessments for the modules is group work so that means they need to meet their fellow students Some of them they decide to meet in hotels when there’s a distance between the groups or arrange the meetings within their jobs, like Dublin Airport, as it is more convenient for them They also meet here at the University because DCU is also opened at the weekends There are rooms where they can have their meetings and pubs where they can have a beer and complain about the assignments - not mine, the other lecturers’ assignments!
If somebody registers full-time that means he needs to attend the first year and the second year at the same time because you have different dates for the two years So the full time version of the course is four full days per month
Usually the students who registered for the full-time course are non-EU because they cannot get the visa otherwise or those who are between jobs This year for instance, we had two airport managers from Oman and they were registered in the full-time version of the course
Who should partake in this course?
The majority of students are in middle management They are either doing it to get a promotion or they are doing it because it is part of the requirements for continuous professional development in their company Or simply because they love aviation!
We have people from the Air Corps, Airlines, Airports, Air Traffic Control, leasing, Pilots, aeronautical engineers, and many more
We also have people who are already established like a director for a major airline where he is already in the top management Some of them are doing the course just for personal development For instance, those who don’t have a primary university degree but have substantial working experience and solid knowledge of the industry They do it for personal and professional reasons We do have few students who are not working in aviation currently or directly They are the most hardworking students because they put a lot of effort into the course and they love aviation Everybody after the completion of the course is a different person! The course really affects them in a positive way!
What are the benefits of this course?
For instance, if you are an aviation person, you already know certain things in your area Imagine you are working for Ryanair, you have been working there for 15-20 years You know everything about Ryanair, we cannot tell you anything more about Ryanair than you already know You are coming to the course and you’re doing a module in airport operations You have never come across this in your work over all those years You are learning some other parts of aviation that you simply don’t know because you are so much into your own kind of small area of expertise
First of all, it increases your understanding and widens your knowledge of aviation and then you also have the management side, where you’re learning about how to properly run a company You’re learning about finance and how to implement change You are also learning about strategy and how to manage people All those skills are
Brian MacCraith (President of the University ), Willie Walsh (CEO of IAG), Marina Efthymiou (DCU), DCU Sta members and MSc aviation graduates
36 The Chartered Institute of Logistics & Transport
INTERVIEW