This week was the final week of shadowing for help desk and site managers. During my shadowing with help desk it was like a regular shift. Adrienne went over the professional staff members to contact that deal with Sparky and Blackboard. There were not really any phone calls or emails to answers during the shift. A few people had come in for poster printing so I pointed them in the direction of Paul. My final shadowing hour with Jennifer Sang in help desk was also a pretty quiet hour with little to do in phone calls, live chats, and email. We discussed what position I would want as a senior consultant, help desk or site manager and I stated that at the time I wasn’t sure but now I am learning towards help desk consultant. I feel that I would be better suited to help desk because I can answer a variety of questions posed by students. I am comfortable answering the phone and speaking with students/staff members because I have been in customer service positions since high school. When I worked at Petco, I would regularly answer the phone and answer customer’s questions. I guess somethings that I could still work on in help desk is just getting to know all the professional staff members and contact information. I’m hoping to improve on getting to know everyone by looking on Blackboard and checking under the TLT staff page.

Overall I would say that the whole internship for this semester was a great learning experience.  I learned a lot during the friday internship classes such as Digication, library databases, tours of Frey Hall and ECC, and much more. In my opinion some of the classes were really great and others were not so much. I really liked the tours that we took because they were opportunities not usually open to regular students. The tour of the test center in Frey hall was interesting to see with the new computer setups and security features. At first it may seem intimidating to students but over time I think people will get use to it. The tour of ECC center was unique in a sense that we got to see what goes on in the background and meet Behzad. I found Behzad to be a really lively man that seems to love what he does and thus made the tour very entertaining. Going into the different rooms with the servers and telecommunications is not something that students get to see everyday. The lessons on Digication and using Blackboard provided good content to use in the future as senior consultants. I had already used Digication during my WRT 102 class but going over it again was a good reminder to help create my page for the internship. Jen Jasiwal gave a good overview of how to use Blackboard and the different things that can be done with editor mode. I personally was not able to attend the physical class but I was luckily able to attend a webinar through Adobe connect. She went over things such as creating folders, uploading pictures, posting announcements, etc. It was unfortunate that two of our internship classes were canceled due to the correction days however, I felt like we still learned a lot with the variety of different classes we had. If anything, for the future a recommendation that I would have is to change some of the class topics. One example is with the class on html/sparky. I personally felt that the class was interesting but it was not entirely necessary for us to learn. As senior consultants we should know how to set up a sparky account as well how to download SSH. I feel that creating a basic page with html will not be asked as much as other questions because usually students in the web design class will go over that with the professor. Now, if anything html/css can be used to modify and play around with a Digication page so in some respects there can be more done with it. In terms of the last two days of classes and final presentations, I think it’s beneficial for us to learn more about the departments within the DoIT branch. I think it’s important to get to know who we work with and other services that are offered at Stony Brook. The interviews and research for each individual service combined with the Google Site make for a fulfilling final assignment. As senior consultants we get to learn about the different departments as well as play around with Google Site. Through this internship we have now been exposed to a variety of web services such as Digication, You Stony Brook, and Google Sites which will all be helpful to know in the future as more and more students begin to use these services.

In terms of shadowing, it was a great experience working with senior consultants in both help desk and site manger positions. At first it was a lot of information to absorb and take in, but after a while I think i’m getting the hang of everything. In all honestly I didn’t even know that senior consultants had to know so much about the different services at Stony Brook, but now I see that they are filled with knowledge. Shadowing site managers was a good eye opener to seeing a different side of TLT where responsibilities include taking attendance, delegating work, scheduling, and much more. At first it felt weird to delegate work to other consultants but over time I think that I would be able to get use it. A lesson to learn from here is that you can’t do everything by yourself especially when SINC sites are busy. As senior consultants you have to be able to trust in others to preform their duties and delegate tasks when necessary.

In the end I had  great experience getting to work with senior consultants, faculty members, consultants and interns alike. I had a lot of fun learning a lot through this internship to the point where I can now consider the interns as a second family that I can rely and trust on. I look forward to working with fellow senior consultants in the future semesters!