CSC 290 : On-Campus Internship Program (OCIP) AUBREY LOKEY
Who I am: I am a nontraditional student, double majoring in Computer Engineering and Physics. After graduation, I would like to research radiation effects mitigation for computer systems. My goal is to help develop safer, more reliable computer systems for spaceflight and terrestrial high radiation environments. Expected Graduation: Spring 2019 Fun Facts: My hobbies include drawing, DIY electronics, creating “lo - fi glitch hop” (noise), and weirding everyone out with my obsession with nuclear physics.
Updating Operation STEM Social Media Operation STEM Scholar Advising & Scheduling
Goals and General Information The main focus of my internship was to update Operation STEM’s social media (Website, Facebook, Twitter) to better present ourselves to the public. A secondary goal was to assist OpSTEM Scholars in creating optimal schedules to keep them on track for graduation. Additionally, this role includes offering support and advice regarding academic concerns for students. In addition to my internship responsibilities, I continued supporting the administrative staff in completing day to day functions
Updating OpSTEM Social Media Operation STEM Homepage Much of the information was outdated and needed to be updated to reflect the current semester It would be good idea to develop a better system for cataloguing current events and information to make curating easier – Ideas for me or someone else next semester! OpSTEM SPT Photos and Bios A complete catalogue of the SPTs allows students to get a feel for who will be leading them in their classes. This not only helps incoming scholars feel comfortable with their SPTs sooner, but also allows them to possibly find common ground and interests. This can further reinforce connections. The layout needed restructuring The site was a maze of old links, dead links, triple nested links and madness. It was hard for prospective scholars to get a feel https://www.csuohio.edu/sciences/operationstem/operation-stem for what OpSTEM is about More images – an overall nicer feeling to the site Adding more images and formatting helped make the website look more welcoming and professional. Attempted to create a more organic feel to the links – where would someone naturally want to click next?
Updating OpSTEM Social Media Operation STEM Facebook The page had not been touched in a long time. It desperately needed to be updated. Social media is a great way to keep connected to the scholars about upcoming events and what is going on with the program, so it is a good idea to develop strategies to reach out. The current iteration of the page now includes a semester calendar of events, mentions of OpSTEM in the news and photos. It can and will be expanded even further. Operation STEM Twitter Also had not been updated in a long time. This platform is somewhat unfamiliar to me and I feel that it works best as an event and news blast platform that students can get quick updates from. The Twitter now has weekly updates on scholar events, a nicer look, and updated photos (Still needs more!) Figuring out how to be effective with social media has been an interesting challenge for me, one which I’m not sure I’ve fully surmounted. However it has been a good learning experience.
OpSTEM Scholar Advising and Scheduling A large portion of student advising took place during the month of February in a series of group scheduling events (“ Scheduary ”). There were several additional meetings with students throughout the semester to check up on academic performance, changes to proposed schedules and general advice/concerns. One of the most difficult things for me about this role is approaching students about academic concerns. I feel that, although challenging, this has been the single most important thing for my soft-skills development. Students are required to meet with their OpSTEM advisor if they have a C average or below at midterms Many students were willing to meet and talk, however there are a few who did not return contact or feel comfortable discussing it.
Skills I Developed From These Projects Effective use of social media Task management – making sure that my time was split in an effective manner between advising, administrative tasks, and developing the social media platforms A better feel for how to help students with scheduling and academic concerns – especially how to speak to students who may be struggling Further developing Excel skills – learning more advanced formulas and effective uses for the program This has benefitted me greatly in my courses as well. I used to think you had to do error propagation by hand. Time management – Throughout the semester I have become much better at balancing my heavy course load, home life and tasks for work …Sometimes I even sleep now. ☺
CSC 290 Course Content of CSC 290 Soft Skills It is vital to develop strong interpersonal skills. I found the modules that accompanied this course to be a generally good addition I noticed that I felt myself giving pushback against some the advice given in the materials, especially in regards to really selling yourself in networking and resume building. I often feel uncomfortable “selling my achievements,” and would rather just explain what I did and how I did it. I feel that this means that I have much more work to do in developing my professional skills Career Preparation The most useful of the career preparation modules to me was the advice on networking as an introverted person. I can sometimes get overwhelmed with large groups of people, but using buddy tactics and giving myself some time away Source: LinkedIn from the group really helped. I also learned how to hone my elevator pitch, which up to this point was a random spray of words about whatever I was just working on/obsessing over. I feel more confident that I can convey a succinct summary of myself when needed.
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