When I was a junior in high school, I obtained my first job at Walmart. Through Walmart, I got my first experience on what it is like to be in the workforce. I learned customer service skills such as operating a cash register, being positive to customers and building rapport, assisting shoppers with finding items in a store, and working on a team to create a positive experience for customers. This job helped get my footing in the professional world and gave me skills that I still continue with today.
Before I started college, I left my job at Walmart to focus on school and wanted to find a campus job that would help with my skills in technology. I was able to get a job as an IT Service Desk Consultant on campus before I started. Through this position, I solved over 80 tickets and over 100 phone calls to help students and faculty members with their technology problems. Some tasks I did involved routinely checking every classroom to make sure that equipment such as the computers, projectors and sound systems were working properly, troubleshooting various devices such as faculty printers that had errors on printing, work laptops that needed help with display settings on external monitors and fixing apps such as Microsoft Office to function properly, phones to be set up with Two-Factor Authentication to allow students and faculty to use their Penn State accounts, printing posters for various organizations and student research, and taking pictures of students for IDs that I printed. This work experience is valuable to me as it further improved my troubleshooting and customer service skills, and allowed me to learn how to communicate better towards others.
In my Spring 2024 semester I transitioned to Penn State University Park, which is a big change from the small campus of New Kensington. I wanted to search for something technology or gaming related. I started jobless until February 2024, where I was hired as an Esports Assistant for Campus Recreation's Intramural Esports League at the IM Building. Through that position, I worked with a small team to produce streams for Rocket League. While two of my coworkers would cast games, I worked the back-end for production by using OBS and Rocket League related software such as BakkesMod to show game statistics on stream. I also helped host a successful Esports tournament at another facility, the White Building's Esports facility, where I hosted all the game modes that were played, including a competitive Zone Wars mode as well as casual Bed Wars. Unfortunately, the IM Building's Esports program was shut down in April 2024 due to lack of engagement.
My former boss at the IM Building encouraged me to apply for the White Building's Esports Attendant position and I was able to land the job during Summer of 2024. Through this position, I get to learn new software such as GGLeap and Fusion to work the facility. The Esports facility at the White Building is an open space for all students to hang out and have fun with others. I make sure that the PCs and consoles are working as well as routine cleaning every hour. One of the most notable events during that position was that I was able to fix our PS5. Our PS5 had many crashing issues later in the summer and eventually crashed every day. I diagnosed the problem, which was that the SSD installed in the PS5 was not equipped to handle the system since it didn't have a heatsink, resulting in the SSD overheating. I recommended a new SSD with a heatsink to my supervisor and took out the old SSD. The system runs good as new now. I still work there today and I like my job a lot as I get to further develop existing skills and spend time in one of my favorite places on campus.