Vertical alignment multirow

Question

I have this code here and I would like to know how can I center (vertically) the first column. Now I have {Feb, 2014 -- Present} at the top of the table.

   \begin{tabular}{l|p{12cm}}
   \ {Feb, 2014 --} & Master Thesis Student \\
   \ {Present} & {XXXXXXXXX}\\ 
   & {YYYYYYYYY}"
   \newline ZZZZZZZZZZZ
   \newline WWWWWWWW}}\\
   \multicolumn{2}{c}{} \\ 
   \end{tabular}

Thanks in advance,

JAY

Answer 1

tabulars are naturally centred vertically. So, I would nest two tabulars inside the outer tabular. The outer tabular provides the general layout/structure, while the inner tabulars provide the content, one column at a time:

\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}

\begin{tabular}{@{}l@{}|@{}l@{}}
  \begin{tabular}{l}
    Feb, 2014 -- \\ Present
  \end{tabular} &
  \begin{tabular}{p{8cm}}
    Master Thesis Student \\
    XXXXXXXXX \\
    YYYYYYYYY \\
    ZZZZZZZZZZZ \\
    WWWWWWWW \\
  \end{tabular}
\end{tabular}

\end{document}

The outer tabular has no column separation, hence the use of @{}.

Answer 2

Very simply with the makecell package. Note that the number of rows that's used with \multirow(cell) is not really the number of rows, but the number of lines, plus possibly some manual adjustment:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{array, makecell, multirow}
\renewcommand\cellalign{lc}

\begin{document}

\begin{tabular}{l|p{12cm}}
  \multirowcell{5}{Feb, 2014 \\–--\,Present} & Master Thesis Student \\
    & {XXXXXXXXX} \\
    & {YYYYYYYYY}"
    \newline ZZZZZZZZZZZ
     \newline WWWWWWWW\\
\end{tabular}

\end{document}