The Zoom Where it Happens
Interning on the IT team at DNC Tech
Johana Hernandez Herrera is currently a student at George Mason University studying Information Technology. She is interning on the IT team at the DNC. During her internship, she’s taken on several projects, including data analysis and reporting improvements for our ticketing system, which serves hundreds of users! Johana and I spoke about her internship experience.
What led you to apply for this internship?
I come from a family that has always aligned with the goals of the Democratic Party. After the past four years, I was always looking for ways to help out with the cause. Fortunately, I learned a while ago that the DNC had internship programs related to my career so I applied to the position as soon as it became available. I now feel like I’m helping the Democratic ecosystem by doing what I love most.
Tell us more about what you’ve been working on over the past few months.
I work for the IT division of the DNC; we are the people in the background of the organization’s operations that are constantly making sure everything is running efficiently and smoothly. These past few weeks, I’ve been working with our support team on our ticketing system dashboards, queries, and more. It has been really rewarding to be assigned tasks that are helping the DNC’s ecosystem.
At the start of my internship, we originally started working on improving the efficiency of the HelpDesk tickets and on strengthening our team’s processes. Then, I started working to identify potential vulnerabilities within our teams so we could come up with solutions as to how to fix them. By building dashboards and views in our ticketing system, I was able to personalize what users could set as priorities. I also performed an analysis of our ticket tags and created a system to help us organize the way we assign them. I am now starting to work on a new project using Splunk (software for searching, analyzing, monitoring) and I can’t wait to start making an impact with that.
What has interested and/or surprised you most about your work in IT here so far?
The most interesting part of working in IT has been the ability to put the skills I learned in school into actual work. I’ve enjoyed this first part of the internship since I found a new interest in data analytics that I didn’t particularly have before. I also love how organized and warm my team has been.
What has it been like to be part of a remote team?
As someone who has never worked remotely, I can say that the experience has been surprisingly engaging and pleasant. The IT department as a whole here is very interactive and responsive. We have team meetings every day that make us feel connected even though we are all very far apart. I have gotten a chance to work with all of my coworkers and also had the opportunity to learn from each one of them. Every day feels like a new adventure since I am always working on interesting tasks that are related to my career.
What is one (or more) of your favorite things you’ve learned about during your internship experience?
I really like that I am currently learning how to utilize a new software (Splunk). I think it’s nice that I get to learn more IT-related stuff every day, and it will come in handy when I add it to my resume.
And, in honor of President Biden, what’s your favorite ice cream flavor (if any)?
My favorite ice cream flavor is chocolate!
