Name: Leslie Goloh
Class Year: 2019
Major: Computer Science
Hometown: Accra, Ghana

Internship Placement: Canaday Library
Job Title: Digital Curriculum Intern
Location: Bryn Mawr College

What’s happening at your internship?

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been learning Adobe Premiere Pro CC and Adobe Audition to edit video and audio presentations from the conference on Blended Learning in the Liberal Arts, which was hosted here on campus in May this year. Two other interns and I work on these videos together. We are also doing research and documentation on Moodle features that are meant to improve communication between the Dean’s Office and students on academic planning and advising. I also serve as a resource as well as gather resources for the development of the Bryn Mawr Digital Competencies Framework, which is designed to help students identify the digital skills required to excel and succeed in an increasingly digitized world, identify and participate in opportunities that will develop these skills and, finally, learn to express and demonstrate them as needed. Lastly, I also happen to be a test subject for the Virtual Reality interns working on the Microsoft Hololens, which is very exciting!!

Why did you apply for this internship?

As a computer science major, I explore technology from a very theoretical point of view with lots of coding and mathematics. So for me, this internship was a break from that to focus on and explore the user side of the technology from an educational standpoint. I was also interested in doing work that was user-oriented and focused on efficiency, convenience and usability.

What is something you have learned from your internship that you didn’t expect?

I have learned and am still learning a lot about what it means to truly work as a team since I work with two other Digital Curriculum interns in the same workspace. In the discourses about teamwork, I usually hear a lot of focus on the idea of “respecting your team member’s opinions and suggestions” but I know now that it is not enough to just respect their opinions. Their work must also be respected and their passions and interest should also be taken into consideration during interactions. That is, your own personal expectations about what your finished group work should look like, or how people should feel about the work you’re doing together, should be put on the back burner. Each team member should be given the space to do their work and their ability to do it should be trusted. This promotes an air of freedom and trust in the workplace which stimulates communication and keeps work flowing nicely.

I have also learned that I really do enjoy editing video and audio files. And I’ve discovered application software that I can use for this as well as for 3D design and animation and I’m very excited about trying them out.

What is most rewarding about your internship?

As a computer science major, I spend a lot of time coding and learning a lot about the mathematical theories surrounding the hidden digital world; however, much of my interactions with computers outside of school work consists of more simple actions like file backups, storage and organization, browsing for information, managing my social media accounts, etc. As simple as these tasks may seem, they take knowledge and some level of skill to perform effectively and efficiently. Unfortunately, the rushed space of my computer science classes does not give me the time to absorb or understand how I develop these skills. This is the point where this internship has been most rewarding. As I get more knowledgeable and develop these digital competencies, I envision myself as a well-rounded computer scientist who understands both sides of technology and who can adapt to the changes of the digital world.