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Balloons at Boot Camp?
Computer Lab Management Prepares its Student Employees
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Balloons at Boot Camp?
Computer Lab Management Prepares its Student Employees
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When instructors assign papers and projects, many of their students flock to one of the fifteen computer labs on campus to seek technical assistance for their work. When these students count on lab employees for help, they are actually counting on their very own contemporaries. As many as 80 students are employed by Computer Lab Management to assist work-laden (and sometimes frenzied) lab users. Last year alone 21,000 individuals used athe labs to sign on with 828,000 logins. How do the student employees of the labs get the job done and always keep their cool? At summer's end, Computer Lab Management trains its corps of fall student employees, using a variety of training techniques to prepare them. The students learn basic customer service and multimedia training skills, as well as employee teamwork skills, which the organizers of the week-long "boot camp" are quick to emphasize as a crucial element of the job function. "The students work in group settings, so they need to learn each other's strengths and weaknesses," explains Janette Dickens, manager of Classroom Technology Services.   Indeed, the liveliest training session at the fourth annual boot camp involved a team-building exercise in which groups of students competed to erect the highest free-standing structure, using only 70 loose balloons and two rolls of scotch tape. Anyone who witnessed the colorful event saw a lot more than balloon inflating and tower-toppling. Laughter, creativity, problem-solving, and communication were in full effect."We all work together and depend on each other in the labs," explained Elaine Cho, lab supervisor, "so this helps us establish communication for the year ahead." The students were also able to break the ice with their new co-workers amid the balloon stacking and bursting. "Except for the diminished lung capacity, I'm enjoying myself immensely," exclaims Paresh Makan, lab employee and political science/economics major. Makan and his coworkers got a real taste of what they can expect in the campus computer labs. Their teamwork skills will come in handy as they serve student lab users in the coming school year. |
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