Work Experience Tasks

[pslater]

Hi All,

 

We've got a year 10 chap coming from another school next week for work experience and I was wondering what tasks others have given to work experience people before? I'm hoping to offer him something that might be a little worthwhile, not just the menial tasks we don't want to do that week, i.e. I'm happy to go out of my way a little to make it worth while for him, not just try to benefit us.

 

Any thoughts are appreciated.

 

Pete

[ICTDirect_Dave]

So a little more than making the brews then?

[tech_guy]

Dig out all your junk and get him to build his own PC from the best bits?

[pslater]

So a little more than making the brews then?

 

I'm sure that can be part of it too...

[pslater]

Dig out all your junk and get him to build his own PC from the best bits?

 

Actually thought this would be a good first task for him, then get him to create his own AD profile and the gubbins that goes with it...Then theres the other 4 and 1/2 days...

[tmcd35]

I've got much the same problem, we have a chap coming to us for a couple of weeks in July. Last year we had an internal student for a week. Most of the time I had him work shadowing our technicians. We support a number of primary schools so a couple of off-site visits is a must. I'll have him sat in the first response hot seat answering the phone and changing passwords, get a real sense of what our job is like Last time I had the work experience chap re-image a couple of machines and join them to the domain. We are currently transitioning to App-V so there might be some application sequencing work to be done...

 

EDIT: if all else fails there's always the threat of making network cables, I might have to order some extra RJ45 plugs just in case!

Edited May 13, 2013 by tmcd35

[Sunnyknight]

Hi All,

 

We've got a year 10 chap coming from another school next week for work experience and I was wondering what tasks others have given to work experience people before? I'm hoping to offer him something that might be a little worthwhile, not just the menial tasks we don't want to do that week, i.e. I'm happy to go out of my way a little to make it worth while for him, not just try to benefit us.

 

Any thoughts are appreciated.

 

Pete

 

Speaking from previous experience, make it worth their while. There's nothing worse than having a WE person feel useless / used / bored. Make them do exciting tasks, get them curious into the world of IT. Maybe teach them a little about servers. Networking would be great. PC building is a good one too. If you develop your own little software or programs (e.g. programs on arduino) teach them a little about that.

 

Make them feel appreciated above all!

[Ketlane]

Different industry, and many years ago, but daughter did a work experience placement with a fashion designer, and part of her week was some industrial espionage - looking in shops, seeing what was selling and what wasn't. Might be an opportunity for your WE student to do some planned web searching - and report back?

[Sunnyknight]

Different industry, and many years ago, but daughter did a work experience placement with a fashion designer, and part of her week was some industrial espionage - looking in shops, seeing what was selling and what wasn't. Might be an opportunity for your WE student to do some planned web searching - and report back?

 

God that would be a dire task. I think i'd walk out after the first 2 days.

[LiamH]

I did work experience in a school for IT, in fact it was the school i'm currently working in, I must have impressed because they offered me a job when i left school

 

From what i remember (it was a while ago) i was replacing UDMA cables with IDE cables (yes, THAT long ago) in a classroom suit then re-imaging the machines. I had a few tedious tasks like walking around marking down which machines were in which room's and connected to which network ports.

 

I enjoyed the break's and lunch times where I sat down and had a chat with the current technicians, I didn't even have to make the tea! but they answered any questions i had and taught me a lot.

 

If you have any tasks lined up like that i think it could be a handy, show them on one of the machine's, explain what you are doing and why, then let them try for themselves. Letting them play around with a server even if it's a virtual one would help them too, I find a lot of people who come in without training have a fear of servers because they could mess up.

 

Try to show them a wide range of what we do, its a very diverse job ranging from cable runs to day to day troubleshooting, plenty of opportunity to mix it up.

[sonofsanta]

We had a student do WE a couple of years back, and she must've found it useful enough cos she came back every Wednesday afternoon for the next two years.

 

The big task we had at first was to set up a small room of computers - we cleared the lobby outside the front of our office, pointed at a pile of iffy machines and asked her to get 5 working computers scrounged out of it, including cabling, OS installation and all.

 

She's also helped me install rack mount servers & blanking plates, set up new laptops (including installing new sticks of RAM without any guidance from us, because we didn't know how either), tested software, website work... more or less everything that didn't involve the admin password.

[Gibbo]

Updating the school IT equipment inventory. Get them going around checking make, model & serial of devices is accurate.

[sonofsanta]

Updating the school IT equipment inventory. Get them going around checking make, model & serial of devices is accurate.

 

Asset registry is one step above photocopying. Twice I've given that job to (full-time) technicians and they've gone and found other jobs to escape the task.

 

/still bitter @spookyspoof

[tmcd35]

@sonofsanta, you can add cleaning projector filters to that list too

[Flatpackhamster]

Back in the good old days of balled mice, you could assign them to clean the balls of every rodent on the site.

[tmcd35]

you could assign them to clean the balls of every rodent on the site.

 

I just misread that - sorry

[X-13]

I just misread that - sorry

 

It's worse when you realise it was posted by flatpackHAMSTER

[Flatpackhamster]

It's worse when you realise it was posted by flatpackHAMSTER

 

Hamsters go first, of course.

[gshaw]

When I had one at my old place within a day he was swapping out rooms pretty much single handed, imaging PCs with SCCM, updating stock list and even got sent into a few classrooms to fix Smartboard issues (under supervision but fairly autonomous). Did the PC building exercise and taught him a few of the little "tricks of the trade" - at the end of it I basically had an extra technician for a week or so

 

Depends on how good \ willing to learn the person is obviously but if you get a good one they can be very useful!

[unixman_again]

When I worked in Australia, the employment law said that you couldn't give work experience people menial tasks or productive work. I use the same philosophy now. In private enterprise, work experience people are a pain - while you'll looking after them, the company isn't making money. On the plus side, you can take them with you on client visits, which shows them what real it is like.

 

In education, when I was network manager, and if I have them for a week, I give them this project Build a Six-headed, Six-user Linux System LG #124 I had a box of random bits, and I'd have them select some bits for a computer, with three graphics cards and at least 8 usb ports. Run it up and perform hardware tests; there was one dodgy ram stick in the box, which they would have to remove. When it was all working correctly, install Linux. Finally I'd help them configure it to run the multi-head config. Test it, and then write a report on the advantages and disadvantages of such a system. This report meant they had something in the future to wave at a prospective employer or they could use it towards their project.

 

Now, I only get them for a day and I explain to them the mysteries of websites, why we use a cms, and we make a change to the website. I also run through installing software. Our hardware techie gets them for a day, and he explains to them the mysteries of PC hardware and takes them around the college on the various hardware jobs, which can be chuck a toner in a printer, replacing a lamp in a projector, fixing a PC, etc.

[bushby]

when i was on WE at my old site before i was offered a job there.

 

i started off on AD then, basic diag followed by building laptops then handing them to the member of staff (that was the scary part i went mute at that stage)

this then leaded to me starting on some server work----> building a media streaming solution for the school

[dany2010]

Asset registry is one step above photocopying. Twice I've given that job to (full-time) technicians and they've gone and found other jobs to escape the task.

 

/still bitter @spookyspoof

 

If my manager came on here I would say you were him.

 

Complete waste of my time when I could be working on one of the eight server that I seem to have taken over.

 

Luckily the new temp tech still wants to impress so he did it.

 

My WE was ok, started of just following him around and then got told, here's a blank server install, configure, and design a moodle VLE.

 

Learnt a lot from it as it gets you into AD An other server rolls.

[spookyspoof]

 

/still bitter @spookyspoof

 

Only just seen this - still struggling with the one here!!! and you know I didn't really want to leave!

[AMLinington]

Work Experience is exactly that - Experience of work and the industry in particular. When I did work experience I ended up in the Civic Centre Library and it was brilliant - they put together a varied program for me giving me a total induction to a wide variety of library tasks - I even went out on the book bus for a day.

 

That student probably requested an IT role and is probably quite excited about seeing what you guys do and seeing how the IT industry works 'behind the scenes'. First thing to find out is exactly how technical he is - I doubt he'd have applied for an IT role if he didn't have some interest so it is worth finding out how much. Put together a timetable of things for him to be involved with - if a large part of the role is servicing tickets then let him service some tickets. Get him into the server room doing something specific - if you are doing a bunch of cable maintenance get him to help out. Work Experience students can't be expected to just 'know' stuff though so they will need explicit instruction and some supervision.

 

Building VMs is probably a good place to start - get him a PC with a chunky HDD and virtual box and invent a mini network for him to build to show him what it is like managing that sort of thing. We have a great task for new Smoothwall Engineers where they must use virtualbox or VMWare to build a whole cluster of interconnected Smoothwalls on different subnets with VPNs, Hardware Failover, Parent and child replication etc with Zone bridging, an AD server and a workstation. Something like that would keep him busy for AGES and it only has to be fairly simple but would give him a good idea of the complexities involved in network management as he'd have to look into subnetting, routing, zone bridging etc.

[featured_spectre]

I did this for work experience tasks for an internal child

 

Get them to build a machine from old parts

Get them to install linux on it (Ubuntu, Mint, whatever)

Get them to look up some instructions on how to add proxy details etc

Get them to look up some command line instructions

Get them to secure the machine

Then install Windows as a dual boot

 

That would last 2 days

 

Day 3 would be a play on a VM where they could not affect anything critical, they could set up the server how they liked and could test various features of group policy, active directory and how it played with Windows and Linux

 

That would last until Friday

 

Friday would be an "any other questions" day and have them shadow either myself or the tech for the day. It got them interested in IT as they came up after school every day to help with the maintenance of the rest of the schools machines.