Case Study C - Yang Xu

Originally a graduate of a computing degree programme in her native China, when Yang Xu started to notice four and five-star hotels springing up around her homeland she decided the time was right to change direction and return to education.

Yang considered studying hotel management in the US first of all, but was put off by the difficulty in securing a student visa. So she settled on Ireland, and like many other international students, completed an English language programme before starting her undergraduate studies.

She thoroughly her enjoyed her six-month stint learning English in the University of Limerick; where the course providers organised regular trips around Ireland for all the international students.

Yang is currently engaged in her fourth year of studies in the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology’s Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Hotel & Catering Management. Work experience can be an excellent learning tool in certain vocational programmes and an increasing number of undergraduate courses offer students high quality work placements during their studies. In Yang’s case, this entailed a 12-week placement in Ireland at the end of first year, and an exciting eight months spent working in Washington DC in the US after second year.

Such is Yang’s affection for Ireland, it’s people and (slightly surprisingly!) it’s food that she plans to pursue a postgraduate course here. She feels however, that hotel & catering students require one or two years’ work experience before enrolling in a fourth level programme, and so she plans to make use of the Graduate Scheme to find work after her final year exams are completed.

We wish Yang all the best but are supremely confident that she will not experience difficulty locating work in an industry (tourism) that, with a value of €6.1 billion annually, is one of Ireland’s most successful.