February 21, 2015 (Week 4)

This week in shadowing, I learned a lot about the departments and services offered by the TLT. When I was shadowing Medha in the TLL, we went over guest accounts and how to help a user through the chat and email. Guests can only get complete access to the internet on the thin clients, which are located in the Central and North Reading Rooms. In other SINC sites, guests can only access Stony Brook University websites. I also learned about the software benefits students can receive after they graduate from school. Students have 200 days before their stonybrook.edu email accounts are deactivated. To continue email service, alumni need to apply for an alumni.stonybrook.edu email. There are several other things that alumni need to do to maintain their accounts on services offered by the university. Most of the information can be found online on the DoIT website.

For site manager shadowing, Sharon went over Lotus Notes and Charles went over Client Support. Lotus Notes is used for professors and instructors to sign up for TLT supported classrooms. I also learned that there is a big difference between TLT and Client Support. Client Support deals with mostly software, internet and networking, and certain programs. They also help students fix their computers by sending them to the manufacturers. TLT, on the other hand, deals mostly with student related software and hardware, such as Blackboard, SOLAR, Print from Anywhere, and clickers.

From this week’s shadowing hours, I can see that Help Desk technologists and Site Managers have significantly different roles. The former requires more knowledge on programs and specific steps in accessing them. Being the latter requires more leadership in direct communication with users. Medha mentioned that she was able to apply more of her skill sets and information she has learned as a technologist. Having experienced both positions, she feels it has helped her better with her speech and customer service skills. It has taught her to be thorough and careful as well. Right now, I  am still unsure about which position I will apply for at the end of the internship. I mentioned leaning more towards Site Manager in my last post. I really want to work more on my leadership skills and I think that being a Site Manager will help with that. Hopefully, I’ll figure it out before the end of this internship!