Continuing on in our series of phone interviews I caught up with Rita Dolan, currently in her first term at CMI.

 

Rita’s Background

Rita Dolan, from Dublin, is a currently studying part-time for a Diploma in Journalism and Media at CMI. Rita’s previous third-level education came in the form of an English and Information Studies degree from UCD. Moving on from her positive educational experience with UCD, Rita worked in the direct marketing industry as an editor of business information. Following on from this, she spent 18 months on contract with Google Maps. Today Rita current works in the not-for-profit sector (for a medical research charity) where she manages their regular fundraising campaigns.
Why CMI?

Rita chose to do CMI’s journalism diploma to help her improve her existing knowledge of mass communications as she hopes to move into a communications/external affairs role in the future, ideally within the not-for-profit sector. She chose this course believing that the diploma would help provide her with a unique insight into how the news cycle works and how journalists think.

Rita’s Current Experience

When asked about CMI Rita offered a lot of positive comments. She mentioned that she liked the small class environment which allows for her peers to contribute their real world experiences to lessons allowing for a more enriching educational experience. Rita enjoys learning from CMI lecturers who she believes have a good grounding in their relevant fields (Kenneth Francis – Newspaper Reporting and Trish Laverty – Broadcast Journalism).

One of the most useful elements of the course so far for Rita is the weekly broadcast journalism writing assignments which have the students re-writing long press releases into shorter, more concise (and broadcastable) content. She feels this is a great way for the class to hone their ‘journalistic’ writing skills. She also praised Kenneth for being so obviously well-read as he frequently references interesting reading material for students on areas outside of his core expertise. She believes it is important for media students to be as widely read as possible and to be exposed to lots of different viewpoints and positions on the issues of the day.