Meet Dorcas

I’m Dorcas, a recent graduate of a master’s programme in Communication for Development. I am a communications professional with experience as a journalism and social media content writer. I like travelling, watching sci-fi movies, cooking and eating.

Louize Clarke, the founder and teacher of Digital Gum reached out to me on LinkedIn, and I was so excited to join when she told me all about the course.

Having most of my professional experience in Nigeria, Africa, I needed to learn some things about the skills needed in UK’s work industry. I also needed to brush on my digital and social media skills and knowledge.

On the first day, I was excited to meet new people. For my one-year MSc programme, I had taken all my classes online and never had the chance to have a classroom learning experience, so it felt wonderful to sit with people in a place, ask questions, talk together and take lessons together.

My experience on the course was a wonderful one. I learnt a lot! It was an enlightening period for me. For example, I had heard people talk about Canva, but I just always assumed it wouldn’t be easy to use. Plus I would not say I’m the most creative person, but we were taught how to use Canva, and I still use it till now to make amazing content for social media. I have skills I can now boast about that I would not have been able to months ago. 

I was not committed to a full-time job, so I had the time to attend all the classes.

The biggest benefit of attending the course is the belief I now have that I can do anything. No knowledge or skill is above me. If I put in the work and learn, I can achieve the goals I want to for myself.

I was the ‘do my homework the night before’ kind of student. But! I always ensured I did my assignment 😊

My favourite module was learning about email communications. I had always wondered how it worked but there I was in class, learning and understanding the application and the design of doing that.

I was a bit nervous. I remember Louize stating it wasn’t compulsory for us to contribute to the pitch if we did not want to. I express myself better in writing than speaking so presenting is an area I’m trying to grow in, but I told myself “This course is to also build your confidence and presentation skills, so I am going to talk!” It was a lovely pitch, the charity members listened well and were responsive, I felt happy about the work we had put in, I could see how far we had come as a class and the pitch back made everything worthwhile.

I am currently job hunting. I have optimised my LinkedIn as we were taught in class, worked on my CV as we were also taught so I’m trusting that very soon I’d get a job 😊

I believe what anyone can do to help me right now is to employ me. I need to put my skills and experience to work in the right environment, I need to grow to acquire more skills and continue to be on the journey to improve myself. Another way would be to connect me to people, courses and opportunities that can contribute to my professional and personal development.

I am learning new things by doing right now. I volunteered to help my church grow its social media presence on IG so I’m learning how to kickstart a social media account for a non-business, create relevant content, apply the techniques of ‘instagramming’, and just take all the knowledge I learnt in Digital gum about social media, apply it, learn from the outcome, respond appropriately and continue again.

I would 100% recommend Digital Gum to people! Like I would tell them ‘Just go there and learn, improve on yourself and your chances in your chosen career’.