Student Assistant Functional Application Management

For me, digital literacy is such an integral part of my life that I am often surprised by how many people struggle with it. Of course, I was fortunate enough (in this regard, at least) to have been brought up in an age where technology was already a part of everyday life, and to have had an educational background that focused greatly on digital skills. As such, family (and occasionally friends) would often come to me with their tech-related problems. Perhaps one day, I will pursue a path focused on improving digital literacy at large. However, in the second half of my master’s programme — after I came back from my exchange in Stockholm — I functioned as tech support at a smaller scale, as a student assistant at the Functional Application Management department of Leiden University.

Responsibilities

Specifically, I was part of the educational logistics team, which was responsible for systems like the scheduling software, and the portal used for education planning and enrollment. My tasks included answering questions from both students and staff about these systems, writing documentation and manuals, and testing new features. It was interesting to see how the university’s systems worked from the administrative side, where I had previously only seen them from the student side. I would not say that the work was particularly challenging, but thanks to my background in computer science, I could sometimes write scripts to speed up certain tasks, which was always fun.

After my graduation, I was offered a place a new position within the team as a functional application manager.

About the image:
Just about all my work as a student assistant was done from home, so I don’t have any fitting images. Nevertheless, the Gravensteen building in Leiden was home to the office of the Functional Application Management department. Shortly after my time as a student assistant, however, the office was moved to the P.J. Veth building. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.