[7/1997 - 6/2001] NETWORK COMPUTER MANAGER - Walt Whitman High School
7100 Whittier Blvd, Bethesda, MD 20817

Responsible for day to day desktop workstation maintenance and imaging tasks including new installations, construction of networking media as required, inventory of in-place systems, and the upgrading of existing hardware and software. Provided students and staff with help-desk level support and training on use of software and hardware provided.

Self-Reflection:

On entering High School, I knew that I wanted to get actively involved in the computer field and noted that my HIgh School was undergoing an entire network replacement. The systems were moving from a Windows 3.11 / Mac LCII network setup to a full Windows 98 / Novell 4 buildout with properly wired networking devices thanks to a "Global Access" grant.

At the time, I had already been exposed to basic system administration in a 95/98 environment and was just beginning to teach myself the Windows 2000 infrastructure. Unfortunately as young as I was (13 at the time), companies were not about to hire me without more formal education and some resume-listed applicable experience. I joined the User Support Specialist in building, configuring, and deploying machines with the new software on them, working with basic student account administration, deploying specialized ID card hardware and software, and providing basic staff training in order to offload some of the tasks off of the school USS (Greg Thomas) so that he could concentrate on more important meetings and general configuration issues.

Over the four years that I spent working with Greg Thomas, I learned skills in asset management, basic administration procedures, how to work with a Novell environment, imaging with Symantec-based ghost clients including use of multicasting imaging sessions, and for the first time in my life, helped newer interns along in the program working with school assets.