Alumnus of the Northern Caribbean University’s Department of Communications, Dontae Matthews gives the vote of thanks to the host of the Department’s Lignum Vitae Film Festival on held at the university’s main campus in Mandeville on April 14,  2019.

Photo credit: Department of Communication Studies

By: Jullian Blair

Kingston, Jamaica- Dontae Matthews is a successful product of the Northern Caribbean University- Kingston Campus. He has hallmarked himself as a meticulous, hardworking and optimistic individual throughout his journey of life. Like an eagle that soars, so does the devoted Communication Studies final year student, who has an emphasis in Public Relations. Mr Matthews life has never been a smooth sailing one; nevertheless, the debonair goal scholar has engraved his distinct mark at the noble institution that is now his alma mater. 

His assiduous work has led him to culture awards and honours such as being on the Dean’s List of Honouree, Top Male student for the Kingston Campus, Runner up Top Male for senior year, Inaugural Spirit Awardee for DCS and Most Influential Student and Today’s Student Leader for DCS within the previous year. 

Despite Matthews’ obstacles, he has managed to study and work at the  Jamaica Information Service for about two years and seven months to fund his tuition. He has placed his roots in God and lives by one of his many motto/bible verses Jeremiah 29: 11, ” For I know the plans that I have for you, says the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.” Dontae emphasized that he has a special appreciation for this bible verse as it continues to remind him that God has a plan for him and most of all he has witnessed the works of God in his life.

Matthews has always modelled the characteristic and portrayed a significant passion for Communications and Public Relations that he traces back to earlier years of primary school. He first realized this passion upon noticing that his first-ever love included talking and relating to his peers, associates and those above him effectively. 

“The way I spoke to people and related to them in primary and highschool propelled me to pursue Communications. When I started NCU, I was doing a radio broadcasting course in which I did a commercial. I didn’t know that I had a radio voice until I did a commercial for the class. I played the commercial in class, to my surprise many persons were complimenting me that I had a radio voice and that I had a voice suitable for airplay so that’s when I realized that I made the right choice of pursuing communications as I can do so much from writing, speaking, commercial and a whole lot more.”

Matthews’ sole goal as a student at NCU was to persevere within his vocational field since he was from a humble background. His parents’ dedication to his development was an inspiration to do better. He grew up within the inner cities but never made this incapacitate his aspirations but transformed this into a motivation to enhance his life and future.

Matthews continues to climb the ladder of his field as an outstanding DCS student. However, like you and me, he also has his strengths and shortcomings. He fosters good time management no matter the workload and deadlines; but, he has a short attention span ironically as his job includes listening, relating, interviewing and other aspects that require his full attention. 

“I will be working on my attention span as it’s quite important to my field of study as I have to listen and respond to people a lot at work.”

Matthews continues to prove himself a striker with his charitable and amiable personality through his engagements. One of his passions outside Communications includes Philanthropy. He highlighted that he enjoyed visiting children’s home, interacting with them and making them feel love among other good deeds.  

“Communicating is more than giving info and receiving information. An important aspect of communication is comprehension, as you must be able to understand the message that is delivered.  It important that as communicators that we carefully and effectively craft our message to suit our audience.”

The Philanthropist and Communication student shared a few of his long term and short term goals with Hill Top Trumpet. He plans on pursuing a master degree In communication studies and initiating a Media and Communications Business within the next four years. His plans for advancing himself continues to accelerate and gets better as he is steering at becoming a lecturer in the Communication field. Besides with his talents, he is aiming to aid students as a lecturer to own and hone their skills; moreover, help companies to within public relations and to increase companies sales because of good publicity, marketing, and advertising. He added that he is aspiring to be apart of Companies success by crafting public education and marketing content.