'I want to work with children in detention in Oberstown'
Katie Brady Dunboyne College of Further Education to BA Maynooth University
Katie Brady from Athboy, Co Meath, had a surprising change of direction. Photo: Gerry Mooney
Katie Brady faced a conundrum in sixth year. She fancied studying psychology, but also wondered whether she was ready to commit to a degree course.
“I was only 17, I wasn’t ready for college,” says the now 19-year-old from Athboy, Co Meath.
There was the added complication for the former pupil of Athboy Community School – she hadn’t studied a third language (as well as Irish and English) in the Leaving Cert and so didn’t meet entry requirements for her CAO choice, BA, in Maynooth University (MU). The BA includes psychology among its many subject choices.
Katie was offered a business and law degree, also in MU, “but I didn’t know whether I wanted to do that. So, I said ‘I’ll take a year to figure it out’”.
She deferred the offer, opting instead for a one-year post-Leaving Cert (PLC) course in her area of interest. She signed up with Dunboyne College of Further Education (DCFE) to study psychology and criminology.
Her plan was to use her results to apply for one of the reserved places for FE students on the BA in MU.
She wasn’t expecting what happened next: “I ended up hating psychology, while I fell in love with criminology immediately.”
Ending the year with a full house of distinctions, Katie walked into the BA programme in September 2023, and this time around she had no doubts about what she wanted.
She took criminology along with sociology, a subject to which she was also introduced in Dunboyne, and law.
According to Katie, she had a “great first year; I met so many friends and I can’t wait to go back”.
Among her classmates is a student who met on the same PLC in Dunboyne.
The BA is a three-year programme, unless she wants to take up an opportunity to do an Erasmus year, and she hasn’t decided on that yet.
But Katie is very clear about her career goal: “I want to work with the children and young people on detention in Oberstown.” This is the state campus for children and young people on sentence or remand from the courts.
“I only started thinking about that when I was in Dunboyne and did work experience. I was in the courts and there was one case that really stuck with me. A child was being sent off and I saw his reaction and his parents’ reaction. I thought ‘gosh, this actually goes on’; I would like to be helping these people.”
