This class was about customer service. It was pretty funny because the syllabus initially said to meet at the Computer Science SINC site, but when all the interns showed up, our instructors weren’t there. There was some confusion about the location, so it was like we went on our own field trip. When we arrived to our official location, Pam gave a presentation on customer service and what is expected of us as future senior consultants. It really stressed the importance of understanding a user’s problem and how to deal with the problem and the customer. They really wanted us to see that it is more beneficial to have customer service skills than technical skills. We also split into 3 groups and watched a video on customer service. After the video, we had to compile a list of all the things the featured hotel manager did wrong when dealing with co-workers and customers. There were a surprising amount of issues with this manager, but I don’t think any of us would actually carry out any of those traits and actions.

For this week’s shadowing hours in Main Library, I went over TLT Staff and their specializations/contributions to TLT.  For Help Desk, we continued to go over phone calls and how to properly answer while also taking precise notes so that the problem can be efficiently documented.  This week was definitely different from the first two weeks of shadowing because everyone started getting the hang of things.  What I mean by that is we all figured out how the rest of the semester would be going.  I started to see a pattern of how my shadowing hours would be.  My shadowing hours in Main Library tended to be busier, but my shadowing hours at Help Desk definitely dealt with more complex problems.

In this week’s class, TLT’s Blackboard specialist, Jennifer Jaiswal, taught us about how she runs Blackboard and how they have been operating the system.  Although I was unable to attend due to an important conference, another intern and I were able to remake the class.  Since we were working on Blackboard and they wanted us to understand how it works for faculty, professors, and students, Jennifer gave us access to test-course page so that we could view what it looks like for a instructor.  This gave a chance to experiment with Blackboard and its features, such as posting announcements, content, and creating a test.  I thought it was also interesting to see what fellow interns posted because me a better perspective of the people who I will be working with.  There was only two of us because it was a make-up class, but Jennifer really clarified the system and made it easier for us to see all functions Blackboard has to offer.

The second week of shadowing still took some time to get used to.  I knew what I was getting into when I applied to the internship, but it was very interesting to actually have it in my schedule.  Having classes, 14 hours of regular consultant work, and then four hours of shadowing started to show its impact.  I really enjoy working with my mentors though and because they are also students, they understand the hardships of balancing work, academics, and whatever extra-curricular activities we may be involved in.  For my Site Manager hours, I went over specific Site Manager duties – like cleaning schedules and blogging, and starting to delegate tasks to regular consultants.  For my Help Desk shadowing hours I went over Velero Chat, Virtual SINC Site, and many of the typical problems that users tend to have.

The focus of this week’s internship class was to meet the Student Technologist Supervisor and Instructional Technologist, Tara and Chris.  They started their presentation by having us critique some PowerPoint lectures from Professors at Stony Brook University.  They also asked us some questions about what we think they do and how certain documentation should be presented.  After, they had us work in pairs on an activity in which we edit and format a document for public viewing.    My teammate, Amy, and I struggled a bit with improving our document in the given time, but we understood the task fairly well.  When we present the document to the class, I was able to fully realize the importance of documentation.  Prior to the class, I knew that a public document or notice should be somewhat eye-catching, but I did not think that it’s format had that huge of an impact.  Usually, I just think that large words would be sufficient, but the entire format is very detailed and the reader’s perspective is of the utmost importance.

Choosing shadowing hours was very difficult for me because I kept changing my schedule, so when we finally started I was really worried that it would be difficult for me to balance an additional four hours of work.  This was the first week of shadowing and to be honest, it made me really nervous.  I had no idea who I would be working with and I imagined that taking on the role as an intern make me a bit anxious.  When I got to my first shadowing hour, I found out that my first mentor was Parth and he immediately started teaching me as a Site Manager when I got there.  He was really informative and went over the various departments of TLT and DoIT.  He also went over the roles that Senior Consultants possess.  My next mentor was Celia and she taught me about what Help Desk does.  We went over Footprints and what Footprints are like for Senior Consultants.  Sitting at Help Desk made me even more uneasy than shadowing in Main Library because answering phones is really intimidating.  As the week went by and I had my next two shadowing hours of the week with Ruhi, it got a little easier.  It’s actually a very interesting turn out because Ruhi mentors me as a Site Manager and Help Desk.  When I told Ruhi that I was bad with answering phones she told the proper way of answering and that I would eventually get the hang of it, which was really comforting.

This week was a bit different compared to the previous week.  For this class, it was split into to two sections.  For the first part, we explored important facilities supported by TLT and facilities that work closely with us.  We visited Client Support and the Language Learning Research Center.  I have been to Client Support before because I had problems with my personal computer, but I had never heard of the Language Learning Research Center, so it was really interesting to see that it was available to students.

The second part of the class was used to give a presentation from the Career Center.  Urszula Zalewski visited the class and really emphasized the important of our jobs, internship and upholding a professional outlook.  She explained that, although we are students, everything should be done with an attitude that exemplifies how we would act if this was the real world.  Sometimes it feels as though we are somewhat sheltered by the school and work, so we do not always understand the circumstances of not doing our jobs properly.  Lastly, the interns decided to all dress up in business attire with a green theme.  I thought that was really fun and I think that it helped make us look more like a collaborative group.

This is the first time that I have been able to participate in an internship, so I’m eager and nervous at the same time.  I was not sure what to expect during the first class and I thought it would be conducted in a very strict manner.  It was a pleasant surprise to see that it was more comfortable than what I had anticipated.  I was also excited to see the people I would be working with because I know that it’s a small class.  I was able to learn a little bit about them, as well as the curriculum that we would be going through in order to become Senior Consultants.

We also learned about how to use this site, SB You, and researched what reflective journaling is.  They really emphasized the ability to use social media as a professional reinforcement, which I thought was really interesting.  Although I am not a blogging enthusiast, I think it’ll be fairly entertaining to combine technology, social media systems, and work.