Why Choose ISE? Learn by doing | Software Engineering.ie

In Immersive Software Engineering you’ll work with top professors, in beautiful facilities, with world-class companies, learning much more than in a traditional programme.

Get a master’s degree in four years

Not the usual five (or six).

Spend 40 weeks every year learning

Not the usual 24. Each year of ISE will be chock-full of learning.

Learn from the best

You’ll spend half of your time in paid placements we call residencies in world-leading companies. The other half you’ll spend with brilliant researchers and lecturers at UL.

Hear from our current students

A new era of computer science education

We understand you have many career options available to you. You could be a doctor, a lawyer, a theoretical physicist. At this point in your life, with your ability, you can be anything. We want you to consider computer science as a career. We’re offering you a new way to learn computer science through ISE.

Students on the world’s best computing degrees spend their time outside of lecture halls and deep in thorny problems. In ISE you’ll take all of your classes in a dedicated studio, purpose-built at UL for your course.

Instead of watching how other people have built delightful applications that can handle millions of simultaneous users, you’ll build them yourself. You’ll do research with our researchers and lecturers. You’ll have an impact.

But there are some things that you can’t learn in a classroom of any type. This is where residencies come in.

You learn software engineering by doing it

ISE’s residencies are inspired by medical school residencies, in which trainee doctors apply what they have studied in a classroom to patients while being mentored. Software engineering is a craft you learn by doing. We think you’ll learn best on the job, with mentoring from both industry and academia.

In your four years at ISE you’ll complete up to five paid residencies, each between three and six months long. Each residency teaches you a suite of concrete skills and gives you the opportunities to practice them. Throughout the degree you’ll alternate your time between on-campus learning blocks and residencies in partner companies.

Inside these companies you’ll be a part of real, professional teams solving problems like:

Climate Crisis

Auto Accidents

Financial Services

Healthcare

Speech Analysis

Business Startup

These are only some of the experiences available to you, one glance at our partner companies gives you a sense of the variety accessible by you.

The Goal

The goal of Immersive Software Engineering is to turn curious, creative people like you into top notch problem solvers and software engineers

We are offering you a new way to learn computer science through ISE.

Software engineers enjoy incredible careers. They work all over the world, in every sector of economy and society, shaping the solutions to the important problems the world faces, at the local and at the global level. They are well rewarded for it, both economically and in prestige.

This could be you.

What Job will I get?

You could join any company as a software engineer, with the competitive advantage of having already 2 years of working experience in high-calibre organizations like theirs.

You could start your own company. We have partnered with Frontline Ventures and Enterprise Ireland, who provide capital to high potential start-ups and help you access state funds.

You could join the community or government sectors, changing the world as part of a non-governmental organisation, using your knowledge and expertise for societal change. 

You could join the research community by doing a doctorate. ISE will prepare you to work and learn in the best research centres and R&D departments. Your MSc year will be an excellent qualification to begin your research journey.

What will I be able to do once I finish the course?

You could join one of the world’s best companies as a software engineer, where you’ll command a high salary and solve critical problems. Employers will compete for your signature because you will already have years of experience working in high-calibre organisations like theirs.

You could start your own company. You’ll create something novel that people want, and contribute to the development of our society. We want you to succeed, which is why we’ve partnered with Frontline Ventures and Enterprise Ireland, who provide capital to high potential startups and help you access state funds. Together with UL, they’ll teach you how to be an entrepreneur, expose you to potential investors, and make the most out of your ideas in the real world.

You could join the community or government sectors, changing the world as part of a non-governmental organisation, using your knowledge and expertise for societal change. Or you could use your new technical and entrepreneurial skills in ways that we could never have thought of.

You could join the research community by doing a doctorate. ISE will prepare you to work and learn in the best research centres and R&D departments. Researchers tackle problems nobody has ever solved before, and problems that are solved in the lab but now need to become affordable and sustainable products and solutions. Your MSc year will be an excellent qualification to begin your research journey.