Kate O'Brien & Jessica Nieuwenhuizen - St.Mary's Secondary School:

Kate: I'm Kate O'Brien.

Jessica: I'm Jessica Nieuwenhuizen. I'm from Durban, South Africa. I'm in Ireland since May last year. I find Ireland very cold. In fact it's freezing.

Kate: I'm from Finglas West. The Transition Year is good so far. I like it. I didn't think I was going to like it. I only did it at the start because my friends were in it. We've done a course with the Fire Brigade. we did Arts & Crafts. We did a play. We did Grease [the musical]. We did loads of stuff you wouldn't have time for in normal school. It's a break, to relax. We were in the chorus line in the play.

Jessica: It' different. We don't have Transition Year in South Africa. It's a lot more relaxing. You get a lot of opportunities with work experience and all that. The play was my favourite part of it so far. It was really nice. I heard about this course at school. I knew absolutely nothing about it because like we don't use computers or anything in school. So it was really scary but you get into it and it's OK.

Kate: I like it, I find it really interesting. It's really good. if you don't know much about computers it really help you and give you a skill. I like coming toe College. The only thing I don't like is where they made us wear a uniform. If they wanted to show us what College life is like they don't wear uniforms. But no it's good. It's better than school. It's so much more relaxed than school. That's what I don't like about school. You get in trouble. You don't get in trouble here.

Jessica: It's nice but I don't like the school uniform. Everyone notices us because we all in school uniforms. My web site is on me. I didn't really know what else to do. I've got my band on it and hobbies I used to do.

Kate: I'm doing a site on stuff I like, like music and bands. I like heavy metal. Metallica and stuff like that. Metallica have been here in Ireland three times. I've seen them twice already. I really like them.

Scott Brennan - Colaiste Choilm:

"The whole class are here this week for this course. Before this for Transition Year we've gone on trips and different kinda courses like this. We went to Carlingford. We stayed up in the mountains for two night and camped out there. It was great fun. The whole class were on that. As well we've done a course in Design and a course in Art. I like it here, it's more free here and everyone's allowed do what they want. It's much better I'd say. it's easier. Later in the year there's a trip to Achill planned and then more courses."

"The website is going grand. I've got two pages done on it. It's on Celtic Football Club. There was loads of pictures and things about it on the web to use. We done computers in first and second year then we stopped that. We did PowerPoint and Excel and stuff like that."

Lauren Somers - St.Michael's Holy Faith Secondary School:

"In Transition Year we're doing Mini-Companies and we're doing work experience. We make our own products and sell them. We're designing our own candles. There's three groups of four and then you do whatever you want to in the groups. We recycle candles. We got old candles. We melted all the candles and then dyed them and put them in mould. You sell them in Christmas Fairs and wherever. We have students from DCU that come up to us. We learn how to sell them. How to put them up in the market. How to work out the money. We learned all that."

"We've been doing fund-raising too. We've done work-experience. We've gone to the Mansion House. We do a thing called Schools Across the order. We have a man comes into us and talks to us about Israel and Palestine. It's linking schools from around Ireland and the North and then linking up with Israel and Palestine. We make posters and we make videos. The Palestinians and the Israelis really hate each other. They're different religion and stuff. The Wall and the Gaza Strip and all that. That's what we learned."

"DCU is huge. I didn't think it was as big as it was. From outside you wouldn't think it was as big. In school we all sit together and we're all quiet. You look at the students here and they're walking around outside. Sitting around and talking. I haven't done computing before. [ComputeTY] was hard at the beginning, trying to get to know what to do. But when you read it through it's OK. We do double classes in computers. We have four a week. We do Moodle as well. We talk to people from Finland and Greece using it. We do a project and stuff on it too."

Richard Arthurs & Chris Boyle - Colaiste Choilm:

Richard: The Transition Year is good. It's interesting. We've done work experience. Community Actions. A load of things like Rap Workshops.

Chris: Judo. And a few collections for several charities.

Richard: We got two weeks to do. You have to try and get the work experience you want to. We've done one but we're doing a second one now soon. I did an opticians.

Chris: I worked in printing. Printing several things like Christmas Cards for a church. It was good. It was hard working the hours getting up early in the morning. It was around 8 to 6 in the afternoon. Sometimes 5. I got a break during the day from 1 to 2.

Richard: Can't wait for college. There's just so much more freedom. It's such a big place. So much to do. I really don't know what I'm going to do yet.

Chris: I'll be doing something to do with computers. I know that much. I'll probably come here.

Richard: I live near Rollestown, Leahs Cross. It's in Swords but the outskirts. I live beside that famous Nursing Home. It's far enough away that you can't see our house.

Chris: I live on the edge of Swords in a place called Applewood Village. There's loads of estates around there.

Richard: We all did the Rap sessions. A person came in and did a whole day's work of Rap instructions. It was alright.

Chris: I played guitar before but I gave it up since. It was from my Junior Cert. I needed to be able to play or sing a piece. a piece. I managed to put the guitar down going on holidays and forgot everything. Haven't picked it up since.

Richard: I wouldn't say I'm very musical. I'm going to start doing guitar lessons for my Gaisce (The Presidents Award).

Chris: The website is on Funny Sports Accidents. People playing soccer...falling over making a fool of themselves.

Richard: Basketball, people getting hit in the head.

Chris: I don't do sports myself but I do Martial Arts. I'm a second degree black belt Tai Kwonda. I do it in Alpha, near the airport. One of the question you're asked on the test is what's the difference between sports and Martial Arts. In sports you train and become better than others. In Martial Arts you train to become better than yourself.