Here at STC we primarily deal in teaching students about the practical and theoretical aspects of the music industry, but it doesn't stop there. We encourage students and staff alike to continue on their educational journeys, and strive to facilitate this as best we can. Over the past year we have helped numerous students and lecturers achieve a diverse range of fantastic opportunities to improve both their education and career options. Education can be costly, so we provide help and guidance to students researching and applying for any financial scholarships and programmes that we can. Here is an excerpt of some of this year's stories.

Martin Larkin - From Stradbally to Berlin

Martin studied Festival Management & Sound Production with us, where he gained valuable experience in production and project management at both Electric Picnic and Life festival. During the course, Martin became increasingly interested in Event Management, but had also long had a dream of learning a new language by immersing himself in another country.

With the help of our Director of Education Dr. Brian Carty and the Léargas team, Martin was successful in securing an internship in Germany through the Leonardo da Vinci programme. Martin worked on event production in a cultural centre in Berlin, working with a diverse range of creative people from filmmakers to fashion designers and everything in between.

Martin was asked to stay on in Germany after his internship and honed his German to a point where he was able to land a German speaking role in Dublin. He raves about the programme and was extremely happy with the support both STC and Léargas provided him.

You can read more about Martin's journey here.

Federico Russo - An Erasmus Adventure

Federico Russo joined the second year of our Creative Music Production degree last year as part of an Erasmus programme run by the college with Saint Louis College in Rome. He really enjoyed his time with us and had this to say:

"The course covers every kind of job possibility in the music industry, offering the student a wide range of choices for specialising in the sector which suits best him or her. The amount of practical assessment obliges you to deal with real-life situations, preparing you for professional work with clients. I think this course would be best for anyone who wants to start building a future in the music industry, whether you want to be a producer, a sound engineer, or anything else related to music. Last but not least STC is full of great people and amazing lecturers, so it wasn't only good for professional growth, but also great fun!"

We really enjoyed having Federico at the college and look forward to more Erasmus students in the future.

Find out more about the Erasmus programme.

Thom & Liam - Broadening their knowledge base

Two of our own lecturers Thom and Liam have received a free fees scholarship this year and are furthering their musical education with a Masters by Research in the Institute of Art, Design & Technology (IADT) in Dun Laoghaire. This masters is co-supervised here in STC. Although both are doing the same Masters, their chosen subjects are vastly different, which is the beauty of a Masters like this one.

Thom is doing his thesis on "Development of open source binaural tools for creative and commercial exploitation of spatial audio".

Binaural processing aims to give listeners the same experience on a set of headphones that they get in the real world.

"In the research, I'm further developing currently available tools to utilise a new engineering standard for binaural data files (the AES SOFA file standard) and updating the reverb algorithms of the tools, to improve the tonal qualities. Once the tools have been built, it's time to investigate the commercial and creative application of the tools."

Liam is doing his thesis on "The Artistry and Creative Conceptualisation of Ireland's Music Festivals". His research is based around the initial concepts behind some of the most successful festivals in Ireland. He is interviewing the individuals responsible for shaping Ireland's music festival industry, aiming to understand the processes and influences under which successful festivals were envisaged and ultimately created. Liam had this to say about his experience so far:

"Having studied and worked within the festival industry for a number of years, the research process during the first year of my masters has opened new avenues of interest. This has proved very informative and has highlighted the lack of recent research on this topic in Ireland. Another major highlight has been the positive reaction from current industry leaders to the research idea and to requests of participation as interviewees."

This article illustrates the diverse range of options out there at all levels of education, no matter what you're looking to achieve. At STC we're happy to help and encourage our students to investigate all avenues available to them. If you're looking for more info on studying abroad or any of the above courses/schemes feel free to get in touch.