‘Innopharma showed me it’s never too late’

If you’ve ever considered going back to school to finally get that degree, but feel like it’s too late in life, Innopharma Education are here to provide you with everything you need.

Joe O’Donovan, 45, had these thoughts while working as a process technician for Boston Scientific. His level 6 qualification from the Cork Institute of Technology got him to this stage of his career but meant he could not progress any further.

Joe spoke to us about his career and how Innopharma helped him to go further.

Joe explained: “A lot of the roles in my career can cross over, you could be working doing an engineering role or the same projects that a manufacturing engineer would do, but you cannot get the actual promotion or reap the rewards that that promotion would come

with.

“I spoke with a man from Innopharma at one of the further education fairs, and he told me: ‘You’ve got the experience, but to cash in on that work you have to go to school and get your piece of paper’.”

As anyone would be, so far into their career, Joe was fearful of going back to school due to personal commitments like his wife and four children. Life was extremely busy for him and being a parent is a full-time job.

But with the work being put in, and nothing to show for it, Joe decided now was the time to get his degree.

“It would have been a huge commitment to go back to college, not just the daily time but the drive time during the week would have made it too much.

“You need a support base; I had my wife. You need someone who can pick up the slack when you can’t.”

The big seller for Joe was the compacted course. He did a level 7, a level 8, and tagging on to a level 9 which is the masters, and they normally would have taken 2 years each.

“Innopharma showed me it’s never too late. I gained the confidence to turn around and say I could do something totally different if I wanted to and start again from scratch. I’m happy to say, it didn’t kill me, I didn’t get a divorce and still had time to enjoy myself.

“I have already got the promotion that I was working towards, and I am still working on getting my masters and who knows what I’ll do then!”