Joel Vanner: Welcome to ”Who Are You?,” The Bobcats You Know, the Stories You Don't. We are on Episode three. My name is Joel Vanner, and I am joined today by Emma Dennin. Welcome to the show, Emma.

Emma Dinnan: Hello. I'm happy to be here.

Joel Vanner: Great. So, let's get started, and tell me a little bit about yourself, Emma. 

Emma Dinnan: I am from Arizona. I am a three plus one journalism major with minors in music and business. I'm super into music. I do our school's radio show here, WQAQ and I have a radio show. I cover concerts and I do photography and reviews. And then I'm also part of our student Programming board, where I plan our school's two biggest concerts. 

Joel Vanner: Wow. That sounds like a lot. You mentioned you're from Arizona. I am. So what drew you to Quinnipiac? 

Emma Dinnan: Yeah, originally, I have some family out here. My dad is from New Haven, so I kind of knew a little bit about the area, and I wanted to be close to family, but still something new from different from home. But I just really loved our journalism program here, and that was something I was really looking at. And when I toured the school, I just kind of fell in love with it. And it's great location wise. It's close to New York and Boston, which are really big for music coverage. And so I thought it'd be a great location for the future and for even currently to go visit places and see a lot of stuff. 

Joel Vanner: Yeah, you mentioned proximity to New Haven. New Haven has a lot of awesome concert venues down there, College Street, yes? Have any favorites? 

Emma Dinnan: I'm a big College Street Music Hall fan, and there's actually one in Hamden, too, called the Space Ballroom. It's like a smaller venue, but they have a lot of really cool indie come through there, and I cover a lot of shows there, and it's one of my favorites. 

Joel Vanner: Yeah, so you mentioned WQAQ. I'm sure your involvement there has brought you to some music experiences in New Haven. Tell me a little bit about your involvement with the radio station. 

Emma Dinnan: Yeah, I started freshman year. I had a radio show with my roommate, and we would basically just play different themes each week. We did everything from, like, international music to, like, our favorites and what we had on repeat. And from there, I've got to cover a bunch of really cool concerts. I think the first one I did my freshman year was, like, a David Bowie tribute band at College Street Music Hall, and Todd Rungren was, like, leading it. So it's super cool. And they like reposted my article. They were awesome. And then from there, I've gotten to do a bunch of different things. I've interviewed some artists, I've done photos and everything, and I've had my things reposted, which has all been a super cool experience for me. It's something I've never done before. 

Joel Vanner: Then here on campus for our student programming board, you've led a couple concerts here. Tell me a little bit about your involvement with SPB. 

Emma Dinnan: Yeah, I joined SPB freshman year, and I was a director for the traditions and Community Chair. Then from there, I started doing more involvement in FalfS and Wake The Giant. And then my sophomore year, I got to be part of those roles for Wake The Giant with FloRda, I did all of our marketing our big reveal campaign was all me and everything, which was super cool. Then this year, I am leading it, so I get to pick who comes and I'm really running the show. So we just had our fall Fest back in September, and I got the 502s to come, which I was super happy about. I saw them actually through WQQ at Toad's in New Haven, which was great. And they're awesome people, and I got to meet them backstage here and everything. So that was super cool, talking to them. And the show ended up going great. We did a bunch of activities out on the quad. It was a really cool time. 

Joel Vanner: Wow. So you've had all of these great experiences in WQQ and SPB. How did you get started in those organizations when you came here to Quinnipiac? 

Emma Dinnan: Yeah, so it's actually a really funny story. So when I originally came to tour back when I was in high school, my tour guide was a girl named Page Posella and she kind of made me fall in love with the school. She was so energetic about it and, like, what we have to offer here. And she also happened to be the person who opened my car door on Move in Day when I got here. And she was like, You should totally join this org that I'm part of called Student Programming Board. And so my freshman year, she was the traditions and Community head chair, and so I was her director and kind of worked planning the psychic fair, which is like an event we hold in the fall. And that was kind of like my big undertaking then. And she kind of, like, brought me into the org and taught me how to love it, and I have just kind of gone from there. And WQQ was something I picked up at the engagement fair. I knew I wanted to be in music, and it seemed the best route for me. But, yeah. 

Joel Vanner: I have a similar experience actually. I did the Be a Bobcat for a day program, and the person that I shadowed for that day ended up I ended up working with her and th uthirty and other student media organizations. So it's really cool that you can shadow those people, get to know those people before you get here. And then when you get here, you work right alongside them. 

Emma Dinnan: It was so cool. 

Joel Vanner: So how have your involvement and the things you've learned in SPB and WQAQ helped with your academics and your studies? How have those impacted those areas? 

Emma Dinnan: Holy. I'm trying to think. I kind of started covering concerts and stuff before I was really doing a lot of writing in class. So I started my writing outside of class. But then going into, like, even my freshman year, I had a professor Nick Petroskevic, and he was my Com 140, which is like a storytelling class. But he was always very open. He was like, If you guys are doing stuff outside of class, like, please send it to me. Like, I will help you with it. And so I would send him my concert reviews, and he'd kind of help me build on those. And that was really a building block class for me as far as writing goes. And a lot of my concert review experience, he was able to help me put into the classwork. Um, and write my stories better there. And that only really grew when it came to I took news writing classes and everything, and they always let me talk about topics that I really loved. So I was able to write about music and have teachers like kind of hone in on my skills and help me out a lot there. 

Joel Vanner: Wow. That sounds awesome. And it's awesome that you're able to keep connected with a professor that you had for Com 140. Yeah, exactly. In that way. What's your favorite piece that you've done so far?

Emma Dinnan: Okay, my favorite piece is actually going to be with that same professor. He also I've had him every year. He was my Capstone professor last semester. And for our big final enterprise project, we work in, like, a live news room. It's called Hamden Kipak News Network. And so the seven of us kind of make stories all semester, and the big final ones at the end are our own. And I a deep dive on the Connecticut underground music scene. And so it was a 13 page piece where I had a lot of digital media aspects. I had a lot of social media stuff, but I got to go to shows. I interviewed a bunch of artists and promoters and people who go to the shows, and it was just really cool because it's not really an area of music that I focus a lot on. I'm not a huge metal underground fan, but it was just a really awesome community and a great experience, and it proved to me that I can do stuff on my own. You know, they didn't set us up with interviews. It was kind of all on our own. And so it was cool experience to reach out to people and learn how to do real reporting without help kind of thing. 

Joel Vanner: Right. Yeah. And that's awesome. You had those experiences in WQAQ and SPB to to get that experience so that you could create this awesome Capstone project that you were working with Nick on. So class of 2025, getting your MBA, graduating in 2026. Yes. All of these experiences together, where do you hope that they bring you in the future? 

Emma Dinnan: Yeah. I'm still a little bit unsure of that, but I'm really hoping to go into the music radio side of things. And I think the business aspect, I kind of want to get a little bit more into, like, the promotional side of stuff and sales, almost. But social media marketing is kind of where I hone in on my skills. I think I'm pretty good at, like, designing stuff and the creative aspect of it all. And so I'm hoping to go down that road, and then, like, my future future goals one day is to kind of own my own magazine, and that's kind of where, like, my entrepreneurship classes and everything I hope will come in handy so I can run my own, like, music platform. 

Joel Vanner: Yeah, that sounds really cool. Yeah. So you mentioned getting started the involvement fair and meeting all the organizations there. Do you have another piece of advice that you would leave our viewers and listeners with who are looking to either get started in the same field as you or just get started in college and getting involved? 

Emma Dinnan: Ah, I'd say the number one thing is just, like, go to everything you can. I think everyone kind of tells you that, but, like, my freshman year, I signed up for 1 million clubs at the engagement fair. And obviously, I didn't stick with all of them, but being able to just even go to those intro meetings, I was a part of thir u 30 for my first year and a half, and I did concert video packages for them and their entertainment news channel. And I've learned so much from that. That helps me in my editing and every. 

Joel Vanner: They're like you mentioned QNN your capstone course, th qu 30 is like the student run television station, and QNNs the class version of that. 

Emma Dinnan: Exactly. Yeah, a show called Hashtag that where they do entertainment segments each week, and so I would get to do features on there, and I worked on the board, and I did the behind the scenes. You can be a director, you can do the soundboard. It's a really cool thing just to learn all the skills. Even if you don't stay and everything, I think just trying everything at least once and seeing what you like has really helped me meet people that I really like and find the things that I stuck with which we obviously like STV and WQAQ. 

Joel Vanner: And showing up, and maybe you'll meet somebody like Paige, you know, like you did there, and have those connections for a long time. Yeah. Well, Emma, it's been great to have you on the show. 

Emma Dinnan: Yes, thank you so much for having me. I've had a blast. 

Joel Vanner: And thank you to our audience for tuning in. That is a wrap on today's episode. If you liked our episode, be sure to like and share, and find more episodes on Apple, YouTube, or wherever you get your favorite podcasts. Until next time, when I ask my next guest, who are you? I'm Joel Vanor. Thanks for tuning in.