<p>I’m thinking of applying. Just wondering how hard it is to get the workstudy (~$2400) on the fin-aid packet and if the experience/work is worth it.</p>
<p>You should know by now if your FA included a work study award. IF it does the amount $2400.......is totally how many hours you choose to work. There is no compulsion to earn the total amount and in fact some students can apply for an enlarged amount.</p>
<p>You'd have to average a bit over 10 hours a week roughly to earn all the 2400. Very few people come close to their total work study allotment, however, but this is very reasonable for an ITA to achieve.</p>
<p>Regarding the experience/work, I think it's worth it if you have realistic expectations. Depending how much you know coming in, the 4 days of training in the summer will be either a review or a lot of new material for you. During the first week of school when everyone's moving in, you'll be busy as hell, but it gets to be very routine, ie no special cases during this time. For the rest of the year, you'll get the majority of your hours as "lab time", meaning you just sit in the lab for 3 hours. You get to refill the printer/help anyone who asks, but mostly you just do your homework or watch movies. There is also tech time, where you work on someone's specific problem, and you can punch time for helping people outside of your normal hours as well. The majority of new skills are learned during tech time. It's also relatively social, as most ITA staffs try to do things together occasionally. Except when your manager won't let you hire strippers (an equal # of both male and female) for your senior ITA project:-)</p>
<p>IT's a pretty flexible job, that's the big perk.</p>
<p>I agree that the best part of being an ITA is that you can pretty much work whenever you want.</p>
<p>I see you mentioned a "senior ITA project." I failed to see information about this on the website. Could you elaborate on what we have to do and if it interferes with classes a lot?</p>
<p>Oh, and is it helpful/required to have Linux/UNIX experience?</p>
<p>The Sr. ITA project probably wouldn't affect you your first year (everyone starts out as just an ITA, and unless you're promoted early after the 1st semester, then you remain an ITA all year.) However, this project is only required once per semester, and it can be anything from planning a social activity to teaching a class about some technical aspect that you are very good at. I wouldn't worry about the time commitment, as whatever you choose to do shouldn't take more than 4-6 hours worth of planning time.
As for Linux and other OS, we don't officially support these, but it could potentially come in handy if a client has a problem and you happen to know enough to help them. The vast majority of people use windows or mac, so there is definitely no pressure to know other OS (but if you do, great!).</p>
<p>Oh, is it hard to get in? I don't have certification but I know enough to work around most software issues in Windows and Linux (not Mac though). So is it a problem without A+ or someother certification?</p>
<p>No, it's not hard to get in. Your level of skill is probably not the most highly prioritized qualification--I'd say that your attitude and customer service experience are much more important to those doing the hiring. From my experience, there are people on my staff who are "computer whizzes", and then there are those who just had a basic knowledge of tech stuff and gained the majority of their skills from the week of training. After you submit your application, you will probably be called to do a phone interview over the summer. You'll be asked lots of things besides if you're "certified" to work with computers.</p>
<p>ah, ok.. thanks! all of this information helps a lot!</p>
<p>Just wondering if anyone here has seen the IT Crowd. British sitcom about IT people. Pretty funny if you get the allusions. BT it if you're interested.</p>