Ever wondered what you could be missing out on by not choosing Public Relations with New Media at CIT? Dora Nguyen, our Vietnamese Ambassador, has the answers…
Since arriving here, I have been asked a thousand times why I chose Ireland and Cork Institute of Technology (CIT) to pursue my Master degree in Public Relations with New Media. I mean, come on, #WhyNot?
This time, instead of saying I opted for Ireland because of this and that, I decided to make my answer a little bit different. Let’s play a scenario game… let’s imagine what you would miss out on if you didn’t choose Ireland and Public Relations (PR) with New Media at CIT…
Knowing what really matters…
In contrast to the common assumption, students electing PR at postgraduate level do not necessarily come from academic and professional backgrounds that are related to PR, communications, marketing or journalism. In fact, some of my classmates do. The rest of us don’t.
One of my classmates got her first degree in Drama and Theatre Studies, another is a Finance graduate while another focused on Linguistics. All of us are, however, looking to move into PR, social media consultancy and the professional communications sector or to enhance career prospects by developing real communications expertise.
You soon realise that it does not matter where you start as long as you start. The lecturers appreciate the diversity of our backgrounds, our experiences – what we can bring to the class and do their best to relate the lectures to what might be our fields of professional interest.
The privilege of being a part of PRII (Public Relations Institute of Ireland)
As a PR student at CIT, we are entitled to attend events such as conferences and seminars held by the Public Relations Institute of Ireland (PRII). Back in October, we attended the PRII 2017 conference – the topic was Crisis and Creativity: PR’s Response to a World in Chassis. We had a chance to look at how the PR industry could meet the challenges and opportunities it was faced with through creativity; communicating with key demographics; developing future PR skills, as well as look at how PR agencies were evolving and how organisations were managing transparency and crisis planning.
We were also invited to a workshop on Internal Communications held by PRII and Heineken in Cork where we learnt about how the beer brand successfully managed their internal communications while enjoying our complimentary pints. Meeting PR practitioners in person and having them talk about what we read in the textbooks and hear in the classrooms was a great experience.
Hands-on experience with Mentorship Programme
For the very first time, the Mentorship Programme is introduced for the MA in PR this year. As soon as our course coordinator publicised the information, we were all so excited. The programme involves each student being assigned an industry mentor who provides advice and guidance on coursework and career development during the academic year.
We also have had guest speakers come in to demonstrate their campaigns as case studies (for The Digital Message module) or to give us a live session and live assignment (for Media Writing module). We will be then instructed to organise a PR seminar to be held in CIT in March 2018.
I can say for sure that I will benefit a lot from the strong connection between the institute and the industry. Please allow me to be straightforward here: isn’t what we all need and treasure most?
Should you still have questions as regards the course or the programme, feel free to leave a comment below.
Interested in knowing more? Visit the CIT website to find out more about the Public Relations with New Media course