About CITech:
CITech Solutions Inc. is an information technology consulting firm, providing IT services to small-medium size organizations within the Twin Cities and around the world. For local needs their staff occasionally goes on site but most of their support is conducted online and over the phone.
“March and April was absolutely crazy,” recalled Brenda Johnson, the President of CITech Solutions. “Most of our clients had a remote access solution in place, but was limited to certain users. We were pretty busy purchasing the proper licensing, increasing capacity and then working with users to get everything set up on their home computers.”
CITech typically hires summer interns to help with their increased workload during these busier times. Their only requirements are that the candidates be “interested in computers” Johnson said.
To help structure their internships, Johnson and her team plan out projects for the students in advance, based on relevant needs. This summer, CITech had a client that needed help transferring over to OneDrive. After posting the position on the SciTech job board, Johnson hired Matt Keller to help the client get set up on OneDrive and teach them and their team how the program works. Other projects included hardware updates and application development.
About the intern:
Keller is currently majoring in engineering at the University of Minnesota. He was excited about this opportunity to work with IT, he said, because he wanted to see if working in a computer science field was something he wanted to do.
Looking back on all that he learned and was exposed to, Keller’s favorite task was diving into the VB and Powerapps programming to develop a solution for the client. Keller also enjoyed working one-on-one with users while completing the OneDrive project. In addition, he was trained on general documentation and the ticket process, helping clients with their IT issues as they come up. Now that he’s been at it for a while, CITech is trusting Keller with bigger and bigger assignments
“I’ll pick up tickets now that I never thought I would before,” he said fondly. “Once I figured out the process it was really fun.”
“Matt is willing to do anything,” Johnson said, “which is great for IT consulting. Here, you get to learn a little bit about everything.”
Of all the things that Keller was exposed to, he most appreciated the soft skills he developed while working with customers.
“Working with clients has changed my view of how IT works,” Keller said. “I like the interaction and getting to talk to people. This has been a bit of an eye opener for me, especially when working with customers.”
Get involved
Make an impact on a future STEM professional’s life and strengthen your talent pipeline. Start planning your internship today at scitechmn.org. At least 200 wage matches are available on a first come, first hire basis between now and August 2021.
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