Speaker: Andy Tran
Introduce yourself and tell us about your co-op this semester.
Andy Tran: Hello, I'm Andy Tran, a 3rd year in the computer information systems program. I currently work at Harvard University IT for my co op. I'm here Monday through Friday from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. working 35 hours per week. I currently serve under the West team in Cambridge, Massachusetts. My team does a bit of everything. We handle new Harvard higher on boardings where we do equipment bills for the laptops and then setting up one on one appointments at their own office for orientation. I also do lots of technical troubleshooting, such as laptop, hardware repairs, for example, if someone's laptop is running a bit slow or even overheating, or maybe even just freezing, then we would be the guys to troubleshoot that for them. We are tier 1 and tier 2 technical support. A lot of times we can do this remotely as well, setting up a Zoom call or even using bomb guard remote. And we can remote into their computer. But if it needs be, then we can set up another appointment to visit our customer in person but it's over a super fun job you're not sitting in the office all day. I'd say half the day you're sitting in your office where you're scheduling appointments or just emailing and then the other half you're actually out on the field on campus and visiting people's offices to, you know, help people through technology. It's overall super really fun job.
While on co-op, what is a project that you've been a part of that has inspired you?
Andy Tran: Something that really inspired me while in this co op is after finishing a an appointment with my end user for a user setup in orientation is she was very appreciative and she told us that out of all the IT departments that have serviced her, we at Harvard University IT were the best IT service that she's ever gotten. The reason why is because we really emphasize customer service here. We don't just give them their new laptop and then tell them good luck. We actually sit down with them in person and make sure they feel super comfortable with their machine, help them log in into their applications and set them up and make sure they're ready to go before we even leave their office. So that just made me feel very inspired to just keeping, keep doing what I'm doing and keep learning more about technology and just. Always emphasizing on that customer service here at Harvard University.
What have you learned that you will use in your career?
Andy Tran: Something that I've learned here that I will definitely use in my career. Well, there's two things. Well, first off, um, ServiceNow, we at Harvard University IT use ServiceNow and that is a major software that a lot of IT departments use, and it's just the overall feel of a ticket system is very important, especially in my career. The second thing is the Mac OS. Before this co op, I've actually never touched a MacBook before, but a lot of our end users use MacBooks. So, for example, Like a MacBook Air or a MacBook Pro, but I've never used it before and I was always a big hater for it, but after using them and setting them up and, you know, you working on them plenty. I feel pretty confident in my ability to use Mac OS now and that's something I'm very happy about expanding my knowledge about different operating systems. But it's great.
