PAT Business School has been a provider of Springboard+ upskilling initiative in higher education since 2018. This enables us to offer free and subsidised courses at certificate, degree and masters level leading to qualifications in areas where there are employment opportunities in the economy, helping individuals to upskill and further their careers.
In light of this partnership, we wanted to give you some insight into our springboard+ courses and tell the story of our very first springboard graduate, diving into how the course aided her in furthering her career.
Introducing Siobhan Maher.
Siobhan Maher, was the very first PAT Business School Springboard+ Graduate. Her journey with PAT Business School and Springboard+ began in September 2018 when she was 29 and completed the Springboard+ ACCA Diploma in Accounting and Business.
Since then, she has progressed her learning further and managed to complete a number of extra qualifications, such as the Springboard+ ACCA Diploma in Professional Accounting and the HCI ACCA Advanced Diploma in Accounting and Business (Graduate Conversion). Most recently Siobhan has just completed her final ACCA Strategic Professional Papers with PAT Business School in December 2022, making her an ACCA Affiliate pending full qualification once she completes her PER.
Siobhan’s further education started in NUI Maynooth, where she graduated with a BA Double Honours in Music Technology and Philosophy in 2010. From college, Siobhan went on to work with an Inflight Entertainment company called Inflight Dublin. Here she worked in a number of different positions before ending up as content acquisitions manager, where her role consisted of liaising with distributors to acquire rights to different films for their airlines.
After six years working with Inflight Dublin Siobhan decided to try something new and took a position with the Irish Film and Television Academy, who run the annual film and television awards for the Irish Film and Television industry. Siobhan worked here for one year before leaving to start a sales role with an indigenous Irish software company called Ticketsolve. After a couple of months working with Ticketsolve, Siobhan was given the opportunity to help with bookkeeping and this is exactly where her journey with PAT Business School and accountancy began!
Undertaking the Course.
Prior to her position with Ticketsolve, Siobhan had no previous accounting experience. She wanted to gain more experience given her current bookkeeping role, so she decided to research what courses were available to her. After a quick Google search, Siobhan learned about Springboard+, PAT Business School and the ACCA qualification. From this point Siobhan decided to take the ACCA Diploma in Accounting and Business with Springboard+ and PAT Business School. As she hadn’t learned anything about accounting since doing her Junior Certificate Business Studies exam in 2004, she knew she needed to brush up on her accountancy skills and studying ACCA with PAT Business School through Springboard+ seemed like the perfect way for her to do this! Siobhan described that everything seemed to be lining up perfectly for her, the course was starting in September 2018 which gave her a few months to settle into her new role before beginning her studies – it seemed like serendipity!
During her time studying with PAT Business School, Siobhan described having an incredibly positive experience. In 2018 and 2019 during her time studying the classes were in-person but also live-streamed and recorded for anyone studying further afield than Dublin or for those who couldn’t make it on any given evening. This provided a great deal of flexibility to Siobhan and meant that If she found a specific topic particularly difficult, she could rewatch the classes and go over the concept as many times as needed.
Jump to 2020, when the entire world came to a standstill with Covid which meant that any in-person classes were stopped. For some this may have interrupted their studies and course progression but as Siobhan describes it, PAT Business School were already in the habit of live-streaming classes, so the switch to everyone studying via online classes was seamless and allowed her to continue with her course without interruption. Siobhan remembers her time studying during lockdown fondly, she really enjoyed the online lectures throughout Covid. According to her it kept her focused during the long days of lockdown and by the time life started to return to normal she had most of the Applied Skill’s exams done, a task she accredits to the support of PAT Business School.
Siobhan had decided to study with PAT Business School in the beginning, as they were working with Springboard+, which enabled her to take the first three ACCA subjects at no cost. In addition to this Siobhan describes being grateful for her choice as the quality of lecturers and course materials at PAT Business School were second to none. Siobhan was then able to get her next six ACCA subjects funded with PAT Business School via Springboard+, this meant she only had to pay 10% of the registration costs for the course, which covered all ACCA exam fees and ACCA annual membership.
Resources Provided to Siobhan.
During her time being as a student with PAT Business School, Siobhan describes being provided with a wealth of supports. Firstly, she expresses that the lecturers were incredibly helpful and always available to answer questions through the chat function during live classes, email after class or through each classes’ WhatsApp group. Siobhan found the class WhatsApp group to be an invaluable resource, as often a student would ask questions about topics you might be struggling with yourself but hadn’t been quite able to articulate the question and the lecturers were always very quick to reply either with worked through examples or voice notes.
A further resource which Siobhan feels helped her during her time studying with PAT Business School was the high-quality notes provided for each subject coupled with all the recorded lectures and supplementary videos where lecturers would go over particular topics or exam questions.
The final invaluable resource Siobhan discussed which helped her to pass her exams and achieve success with her studies is the PAT Business School exam platform. PAT Business School have created their own version of the ACCA platform through which mock exams were given. This platform recreated the exam conditions of the real ACCA exams. Siobhan describes this as a helpful tool to practice with which meant there were no shocks on the day of the exam!
Since Graduating.
After completing the ACCA courses with PAT Business School and Springboard+ and graduating Siobhan has been able to progress her career from role to role. From Accounts Receivable with an Interior Design Company to Finance Administrator with the College of Anaesthesiologists, to Finance Executive with a software company, to starting her current position as an Accounts Associate with the accountancy firm Cronin & Company. In her current role, Siobhan hopes to gain the experience required to complete her PER which will enable her to become a fully qualified ACCA member.
Having her studies behind her now and being able to see the full benefits it has had on her skills and career, Siobhan says that she would highly recommend others to take the plunge and undertake this course with PAT Business School, Springboard+ and ACCA as she sees it there aren’t really any downsides.
Since graduating, Siobhan expresses that ACCA has opened a whole host of opportunities that would not be available to her if she had not undertaken her studies and these exams. Furthermore, she is grateful that she found the Springboard+ and PAT Business School courses, as it enabled her to find a career path that excites her. Having an ACCA qualification opens many doors to different career paths and opportunities, Siobhan’s story is a prime example of this. Even if after studying you decide you don’t want to be an accountant, an ACCA qualification still opens many doors to other roles as it is a globally recognised qualification. In the words of our first Springboard+ student “If you are thinking about it, don’t hesitate, go for it, you won’t regret it!”