Jermiah Robinson
September 12th, 2025
Old Dominion University – IT Help Desk
Working at the IT Help Desk as a Student Lead has been an enlightening experience when it comes to leadership and communication with students and professors around the university. From assisting users with password resets, to walking users through Zoom and using Panopto, and even assisting users with Two Factor issues regarding DUO Mobile. I have learned quite a lot so far in these 50 hours about applying my leadership skills with my coworkers and other team members when tough situations occur.
As a Student Lead, my duties include assisting coworkers with tickets and situations that would require a supervisor. It is my responsibility at that point to assist and research further when it comes to tickets in ServiceNow that require more thought than usual. An example of these includes tickets that cover services that otherwise have no documentation or past incidents that could explain what to do. At that point, my leadership chimes in and I take over and research and figure out a solution to relay to my coworkers.
Additionally, I was able to assist in getting a knowledge base page changed. Recently, SAS was found to have an outdated license. I looked into it and noticed that not only is the student license for SAS expired on the 31st of August, but even the license at the help desk was also expired. Due to this, the user who I was talking to had to be forwarded to a different team due to the license not being updated on both the ODU page for students and also our license as well at the help desk. Immediately after this, I reached out to my supervisors to get our knowledge base page updated in order to have this new license that the student would receive. Today, the student license was updated for all students along with our knowledge base page being updated as well after reaching out to the proper team who maintains and updates the license.
Overall, these past 50 hours have let me improve on my leadership skills, serving as a backbone to fall onto when coworkers need my help and with getting very important updates through with our student license for SAS. While leadership is a very important skill, communication is also very important when it comes to working at the IT Help Desk. Every day, calls come in from students, guests, faculty, professors, and ODU/EVMS staff who need help with ODU’s services.
One such case was an angry Easter Virginia Medical School employee who needed assistance with their EPIC account. One of my coworkers needed help understanding who manages EPIC, and I quickly explained that anything with the EPIC service would go to the Medical Group Helpdesk located near the EVMS Campus. This quick communication with my coworker allowed for a fast exchange of information for the employee and would prevent them from getting even angrier over wrong information.
As I continue to work for the IT Help Desk for Old Dominion University, I continue to gather more knowledge of not only the services Old Dominion University uses on a daily basis but also improving my leadership and communication between my coworkers and users within the university. As I go past the 50-hour mark for my internship, I believe that I can make great chance for the team and hope to continue assisting everyone within the University.
Conclusion
After 50 hours of working with the IT Help Desk, I have improved significantly with leadership and communication. Through my leadership skills, I was able to step up when coworkers face confusing incidents and even bring important issues to light to my supervisors. I was also able to step up with my communication skills, preventing a meltdown from occurring with an employee at the Eastern Virgina Medical School. As I continue to work, I will continue to focus on my leadership as a Student Lead and will continue to work on my skills at the IT Help Desk.