{"id":12166,"date":"2023-08-21T15:38:48","date_gmt":"2023-08-21T19:38:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/harrington\/?p=12166"},"modified":"2023-09-15T11:07:31","modified_gmt":"2023-09-15T15:07:31","slug":"theresa-brown-20","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/harrington\/alumni-profile\/2023\/08\/21\/theresa-brown-20\/","title":{"rendered":"Theresa Brown ’21"},"content":{"rendered":"

Theresa Brown ’21, Italian<\/a>, journalism<\/a>, and professional and public writing<\/a>, was involved in many organizations during her time at the University of Rhode Island. She was involved with organizations including the Good Five Cent Cigar<\/a>, Ether(bound), PRSSA<\/a>, and Chi Omega. Since graduating, Brown earned a master’s in publishing at New York University. She is now working as a sales coordinator at Simon & Schuster.<\/span><\/p>\n

Why did you choose to study at URI?<\/b><\/p>\n

I grew up in Rhode Island, my dad went to URI, and my cousins were there at the time. I actually applied as a nursing major. URI has the most amazing nursing program, and it was a dream of mine at that point to get in and do that. But also, just being close to home was really nice. And then, when I changed majors, it was great because Harrington was there, and I had the ability to switch to another amazing school.<\/span><\/p>\n

What made you choose to study your majors?<\/b><\/p>\n

I started as a nursing major. I was going through a Grey’s Anatomy phase at the time. I can’t do blood at all, so I don’t know why I thought that was a good idea. But I met Emily Gotheir, the editor-in-chief of the Good Five Cent Cigar, in 2017.  <\/span><\/p>\n

As I was going through my classes and realized that nursing might not be for me, I realized that what I was looking forward to was the Cigar meetings on Mondays and the one writing class that I was taking with Professor Cheryl Foster. I told her I was not doing well with nursing, and it just wasn’t for me, and I knew that immediately. She set me up with a meeting with John Pantalone, the Journalism Department chair, and with Jeremiah Dyehouse, the Professional and Public Writing Department chair. I ultimately decided to do both. <\/span><\/p>\n

On the Italian side of things, I grew up learning Italian here and there because my grandparents on my mom’s side are Italian immigrants. I studied it all through high school and went to Italy a few times. I was taking college courses in high school for Italian. So I said, “Maybe I’ll just pick that up again now that I have time.”<\/span><\/p>\n

I ended up taking 18 or 19 credits every semester so I could hit all of those, but I do not regret it at all. They were all individual passion projects that led me toward what I’m doing today.<\/span><\/p>\n

How do you use the skills you learned while you were at URI today?<\/b><\/p>\n

Harrington and the Cigar gave me the confidence I didn’t have in high school. I was determined to be involved and have people know my name. I wanted to make a difference with what I was doing. I think a lot of what I got was confidence from being in the positions I was in, and through classes, I gained the confidence that I knew what I was talking about. <\/span><\/p>\n

The skills I learned through journalism and writing were the multimedia aspects. People think journalism and writing are writing on paper or typing, but it was a lot of video production and editing, knowing how to take a photograph, making a website, and writing for different formats. Being able to say that I had experience making my own videos, being in front of the camera, being behind the camera, being in the editing room, knowing how to code a little bit, how to set up a website, and how to use InDesign, Premiere, and all of those things that I learned in my multimedia courses was huge. <\/span><\/p>\n

During graduate school, I got a job in luxury fashion in New York City. I credit that with being able to work on the website and graphic side of things, being comfortable speaking publicly and communicating, and having confidence. I don’t think I would have had that if I had not been in classes with people like John Pantalone, Cheryl Foster, and Genoa Shepley.<\/span><\/p>\n

Describe your favorite memory from your time as a student.<\/b><\/p>\n

Running for editor-in-chief of the Cigar sticks out to me. I remember I went to my first meeting, and then I didn’t show up again for another month. And then I ran into Emma, and she said, “You gotta come back. You gotta try again.” At that point, I had switched, and I knew that I was going to be a journalism major. She said, “There’s no reason for you not to be here.” <\/span><\/p>\n

By the end of that semester, I absolutely loved it, and I was taking five articles a week. Going into that next semester, the new managing editor Nick Bush, who is one of my all-time favorite people,  encouraged me to run to be a staff reporter. I did, and I didn’t get it, and I was so devastated. But I kept going back, and I kept taking more articles. I was like, “I am going to prove to them that I’ll be good enough for staff next semester.” <\/span><\/p>\n

Then two years later, I was standing in front of the same group of people running for editor-in-chief unopposed. And I told everyone that story. Those two years held a lot, finally becoming comfortable being away from home, creating such an amazing group of friends, a whole lot of interviews, photographs and articles, and uncovering those exciting things. I think those four years at the newspaper turned into the basis of who I am today.<\/span><\/p>\n

What one piece of advice would you give Harrington students who are preparing to enter the workforce?<\/b><\/p>\n

First, the advice I got from my dad going into college was, “Make everybody know your name.” I think that’s huge because making those connections with professors ultimately gets you everywhere. So make them know your name, make them know that you care. <\/span><\/p>\n

I would also say get involved. I think that learning goes so much beyond just being in the classroom, and some of the most amazing lessons I learned were through articles I wrote for the Cigar, working at Ether(bound), and working at the PRSSA. Harrington loves the experiential learning part of things, and I think to overlook that is to overlook a huge part of the growth that you’ll do in college. <\/span><\/p>\n

I think students should take classes outside of their major. Harrington has so many things; if it were up to me, I would have majored in all the programs. Everything crosses over. You don’t just use PR<\/a>, journalism, writing, or film<\/a>. It’s one school for a reason, and taking classes that are cross-listed or that random film class or PR class is super important because you never know where you’re going to be able to use that. Chances are, it’s everywhere.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cIf it were up to me, I would have majored in all the programs. Everything crosses over. You don’t just use PR, journalism, writing, or film. It’s one school for a reason.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4952,"featured_media":12168,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[23,98,92],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni-profile","category-journalism","category-writing"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/harrington\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/harrington\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/harrington\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/harrington\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4952"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/harrington\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12166"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/harrington\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12166\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12530,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/harrington\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12166\/revisions\/12530"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/harrington\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/harrington\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/harrington\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/harrington\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}