Harrisburg Area Community College

When I started collage, I got a job working for HACC. I was a computer lab attendant. I really liked this job. It was kind of easy, I could do homework and get paid.

Although I did have some serious/hard work to do at times, most days it was just sitting there to make sure people signed in. After I left this job I found out that they made that part even easier. I used to have to check IDs, and then make sure the people signed in and out when entering and leaving. The new system I was told the student just scans their ID when they come in, and leave. So the attendant only needs to make sure the person coming in scans their ID. This would make the job even easier.

Usually at the beginning on the semester it was the attendant’s job to add any of the new students to the system. We also had to update the old student’s accounts to let them on in the new semester. The only time this was hard was when they were running a large computer orientation class. In those cases you had to enter a lot of student’s information in a very short time.

Another harder (for some students) thing I had to do was help maintain the printers. We had a larger mainframe printer, and at times it would jam, and that was the hardest thing about the job. Opening the printer, undoing the jam, and fixing it, and even that wasn’t all that bad. The other thing we had to do with the printer was tear off the print outs the students sent to it, and put them in alphabetical bins.

Other than that there was just a few things we had to do with helping the students if they had a problem with their computer or one of the small printers. But what we weren’t allowed to do was help with homework. We weren’t “certified” to help out the students. Although I have to admit at times I did. If it was a simply problem I would give hints. Especially when they were offering some of the mainframe programming classes.

With mainframe programming everything went through the terminal that was at the attendant’s desk. So I could see every program that was run, and see why they errored out. Since I had already taken a course in mainframe programming at the time, I was able to help students out. I used to send anonymous messages through the network to the students with hints on how to fix the problem.

Over all this was a great job, but since it was a student job, I couldn’t keep it if I wasn’t going to HACC full time. So unfortunately I had to give it up…