Subject choices for 13 year old in secondary school with a leaning towards architecture/engineering.

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https://www.riai.ie/careers-in-architecture/how-to-become-an-architect - this might help.

Points very high. 622 this year for TU. Its all about supply and demand. Low number of places, high demand, high points. An interview also seems to be part of the selection process.

Personally, I would say she is too young to be deciding her future at this stage.

Having just got another child passed the Leaving Cert, I would say the broader their subject choice at Junior Cert Level, the better. My son has been a lawyer, economist, teacher and has finally decided to go down the Finance route with Accountancy in his mind at the moment. This may change as they can specialise in year 3 of his degree.

The Junior cert should be used, in my opinion, to take as broad a selection of subjects as possible. This leaves them in the best place possible, when selecting subjects for their Leaving Cert. If they don't know what they want to do when they leave school, they can take the subjects they most enjoyed from Junior Cert and sit them for their Leaving Cert. It is so much easier to study subjects you enjoy rather than muddle your way through Leaving Cert doing subjects you hate because you kept your subject selection too narrow at Junior Cert level.

I would be in favour of the idea of taking a language at least until Junior Cert.

these 622 points are not from the LC alone but from a combination of the LC, a portfolio and an interview. Points did go up this year, like pretty much every course, due to the inflated grades but actually dropped last year.

 

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Because your understanding and ability to communicate in English will be improved by your understanding of other languages.

Will it though?
I don't speak any other languages, being on the dyslexic/dyspraxic/thick spectrum, but I rarely find myself unable to comprehend or articulate a concept or topic due to limits in vocabulary. For someone like me the bandwidth taken up attempting to learn a second language would far outweigh the advantages of having a broader course choice in 3rd level as it would have a significant negative impact on my other subjects in school. Thankfully my Leaving Cert was 30 years ago and so any study I may choose to do now I do as a mature student.

On a more general note it should be a criminal offense to tell a child that their school days are the best days of their life. Nothing could be further from the truth and they should be reminded of that on a regular basis.