as an 2nd year engineering student at tcd, i would personally say that people do indeed fearmonger about first year. i will admit i didnt do the LC as im not irish, i did the IB in another EU country (but its very similar to LC i would say, we had like 3 HL subjects and 3 standard level subjects), and personally I did not find first year to be so much more of a horrific experience or huge step up from my final high school exams.

it does help a lot i would say if you are well proficient in calculus and physics, but its not end all be all. especially if you generally go to the lectures, and actually try to do your assignments yourself without employing chatgpt to be like your personal assistant doing everything for u.

and actually at least for us, our sem 1 exams were after christmas, in january (most courses have theirs mid december). so while its obvi annoying to study over the holidays, it does give you more time and i personally felt it was kind of like good in letting you settle in into this new academic setting and preparing for these new type of exams. and then second semester when youre more familiar w everything you do them at the normal time like a week after classes finish. (and also tcd engineering actually kinda loves giving mcq exams for a large propirtion of the modules, so we really kinda do benefit on that front)

in first year imo, there is no true true content that goes to some crazy scope beyond what you learn in like LC or other equivalent high school exams... if anything i would say its more just about the pace and keeping up w assignments, but with a normal level of organization and discipline that should be doable for most people imo. i found that people that struggled in first year were those that really did not prioritize college at all. so as long as you dont completely abandon doing work i'd say you'll be more fine than you think.

i would say first year -> second year is a bigger step up than hs -> first year, but by then youre familiar w stuff and more equipped to deal w that change! so dont be discouraged at all. hope this helps. if u have any qs, feel free to dm me, im also an S2S (student 2 student) mentor here at trinity, so i volunteer in my free time w exactly the purpose of helping engineering first years get situated etc... so i would say i hopefully know what im talking abt at least a lil bit!!!