Cillian Donnelly

I chose the BA Digital Media course at NUI-Maynooth because of my deep love for technology. I wanted to learn more about the digital technologies and new media that envelop the world in which we live today.
I also loved learning about the underlying cultural theories that apply to New Media, and how Media producers can use them to their own gain. My learning of new media theory accumulated in my 3rd year when I wrote my under graduate thesis on Batman! I thoroughly enjoyed this course due to its unique “hands on” approach to learning.  Myself and my fellow students were encouraged by lecturers to learn by “doing”.  Both individually and as part of a team I created videos, animations, apps, and websites. The course fosters student creativity, while still allowing you to learn the technical skills that are vital in an ICT workplace. The lecturers and teaching staff were always approachable and on hand to offer help and advice to students on any aspect of their work.
Upon graduation I took up a position with Intel as Product Design Engineer. In this role I help to design new cutting edge technologies for Intel, many years before they hit market shelves. It’s my job to ensure product performance while still meeting product cost, quality and time-to-market goals. I work at the cutting edge of Science, collaborating closely with Intel’s design teams all over the world, including the United States, Israel, and Malaysia.
The skills I learned as part of this BA Digital Media were instrumental to me securing this job. My employers were impressed at the range of computer programming languages I had fluently learned on the course. For example, Java, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, XML, C#, and AS3. They were also most impressed the wide range and variety of team projects I had completed as part of my course. At my interview I was able to showcase a colorful portfolio website filled with apps, animations, and videos, all completed as part of my course work.