Sean Gordon

Sean graduated in 2015 and recently started work as an ontologist on a greenfield project that is expected to last 5-10 years. He negotiated for 60% work from anywhere and a solid 5 weeks of uninterrupted vacation to return to India and continue his yoga training. (Shout out from Sean to Dean Estabrook, her negotiation tactics, and the perspective that “salary is only part of the total compensation package.”)

What do you remember best about your days as a GA? Any funny/crazy stories you can share?

The strong community and connection of on campus staff faculty and students. Particularly of Team Awesome.

Unfortunately, I won’t be able to share any stories until the statute of limitations runs out.

Do you find yourself using Team Awesome skills in your current life?

Professional teamwork, innovation with what you’ve got, and an ability to get people to express the real problem are all skills I learned from my time with Team Awesome and are part of my daily work.

What was your favorite class or instructor when you were in school?
That’s a hard choice. I really have to say that it wasn’t a class or a faculty member that really taught me the most about how to show up and get involved which is what it takes to succeed. I would not be where I am today without Jill Gengler.

Any regrets such as a class you wish you had taken, a club you should have joined, an event you weren’t able to go to, etc.?

No ragrets

Favorite meme?
You never forget your first: https://imgflip.com/i/3zlumb

Would you rather fight 100 duck-sized horses, or one horse-sized duck?
No. I’m a lover, not a fighter.

Cat or dog or ???

Dags.

Jen here! I snagged this pic of Fae off of Sean’s Facebook page. Fae is simply amazing and snagged a good human when she adopted Sean. Every day is an adventure. 😀

 

 

Juliana, class of 2009, is in the Philadelphia suburbs, working as an IT project manager for University of the Sciences in Philadelphia. 

Anything going on in life right now that’s especially awesome, bearing in mind that simply surviving is really pretty damned awesome right now?

I’m doing a huge project with a small, scrappy team that’s amazingly creative and supportive; we make space for each other to deal with tough life stuff and take time off. Working in this environment would be awful with unsupportive or unsympathetic colleagues, or consultants who’re just phoning it in– I’m so fortunate that work is a space where I can focus on problems I *can* solve and helping others do the same.

What do you remember best about your days as a GA? Any funny/crazy stories you can share?

One day there wasn’t much to do and Jeanne and I asked #mattbeth if we could explore the GSLIS attic over what was then the ITD office– there was a trap door and we were curious. He said yes, and we found a bunch of old storage media and other expected papers, but then we also found… the Jaeger hat! I don’t know if this is still floating around, but it had a spinner on it that said whose turn it was to buy the Jaeger, and all the GAs of the time posed with it. Jill, Matt, or Karla may still have photos.

Look what I found! –Jen:

Do you find yourself using Team Awesome skills in your current life?

Absolutely! The fun, empathetic approach to tech support has been vital in later support work, and it’s something I try to bring to my current leadership role. As a project manager I can help set a tone for a project, and I try to make it one that’s fun and that empowers users to gain knowledge of the system. For that matter, this approach is great for helping raise my nephews– toddlers can get frustrated easily and it’s good to remind them that we can have fun trying to figure out how to get a toy working or do other basic troubleshooting.

What was your favorite class or instructor when you were in school? I had such a good time in Kate McDowell’s YA fantasy class– we had a great time discussing the literature, even if it’s not skills I use that often professionally. I definitely use the texts and readers’ advisory knowledge for friends and their children though!

Any regrets such as a class you wish you had taken, a club you should have joined, an event you weren’t able to go to, etc.?

I had time to do a lot and don’t have any big regrets. Though I really loved tabling with ALA for the undergrad sexual health info fair the one time someone organized that– people were so happy and surprised the library had resources about sexuality, and I’d love to have done more to make that kind of information more accessible.

Favorite meme?

This is a tough one! I think one of my all-time favorites is the “i lik the bred” cow poem meme.https://annleckie.tumblr.com/post/155862925211/my-name-is-cow-masterpost

Would you rather fight 100 duck-sized horses, or one horse-sized duck?

Assuming the horses are not trained for battle, I think 100 duck sized horses would scare pretty easily. Ducks can be pretty aggressive!

Cat or dog or ???

I have a cat, pictured, since she’s a much better fit for someone who’s normally out a lot. I love dogs too and would definitely foster one right now if I didn’t have a cat who very much needs to be an only pet!

Stephanie graduated in 2015 and currently lives and works just outside of Seattle. She’s a Tableau consultant at a company called Decisive Data.

Anything going on in life right now that’s especially awesome, bearing in mind that simply surviving is really pretty damned awesome right now?

I’m pretty excited about my job! I started 6 months ago and am loving it. I get to help clients manage their data and then visualize it in Tableau. It’s been a really good fit with an LIS background despite not being very LIS-y.

What do you remember best about your days as a GA? Any funny/crazy stories you can share?

The 2014 Polar Vortex fiasco is probably the most memorable. #neverforget racing down to the basement and nabbing all the computers as water is raining from the ceiling. Making the April fool’s joke video was a blast. Other than that, the many, many hours I spent hanging out in the ITD office TA-ing LEEP classes and laughing way too much/too loudly and getting in trouble for it 😛 (I blame a former colleague. If you worked with the team, you can probably guess who I mean.)

Do you find yourself using Team Awesome skills in your current life?

Yes! I’ve ended up being the go-to “help me troubleshoot this thing while our IT person is busy” person at every job since being a GA. My dongle knowledge has come in handy a surprising number of times.

What was your favorite class or instructor when you were in school?

Probably Prof. Yoo-Seong Song’s classes. Taking his classes led me to the career I’m in now. Everyone at GSLIS (err…the iSchool) is great though, seriously. I loved all my profs.

Any regrets such as a class you wish you had taken, a club you should have joined, an event you weren’t able to go to, etc.?

I had really wanted to take Instruction with Melissa Wong and could never fit it in my schedule. Now my job is shifting to doing lots of training sessions and I’m kicking myself because it really would have come in handy! Maybe I’ll still take it someday.

Favorite meme?

The lady yelling + the cat one

Would you rather fight 100 duck-sized horses, or one horse-sized duck?

I’m gonna go with 100 duck-sized horses. Have you been near a horse lately? They are big and ducks are mean.

Cat or dog or ???

Dog! I’m sadly quite allergic to cats.

In today’s walk down memory lane and find out what our Team alum, Kate Rojas, is up to.

Kate graduated in December 2014 (stayed until December 2015 to complete K-12 teaching license requirements) and is currently living in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and working as a school librarian in a public elementary school.

Anything going on in life right now that’s especially awesome, bearing in mind that simply surviving is really pretty damned awesome right now?

Everyone in my immediate family is well, and my colleagues from work also appear to be in good health, which is a blessing. I’ve also been meeting with some of my students in a virtual capacity, and it’s been great to connect with them since I haven’t seen them in person for almost two months now. I’ve also made some new friends from all over the world through an online gaming community, and it’s fascinating to talk with them about how we are all in the same quarantined situation.

What do you remember best about your days as a GA? Any funny/crazy stories you can share?

I remember everyone’s positivity, and I remember our GA group being obsessed with Emily Bayci’s crazy hat collection. We laughed a lot. I remember how kind everyone was at the iSchool, and I always had a great time figuring out how to best help other people with any and all technical problems.

Do you find yourself using Team Awesome skills in your current life?

YES! I am my school’s “technology coordinator,” which basically means that I am the first point-of-contact with any and all tech issues. Every day, I look forward to receiving phone calls and emails from staff.

Right now, I am actually working with our district’s team of librarians on creating a virtual district-wide Reading Olympics or “Battle of the Books” competition. This event is once a year, and student teams face off against one another to answer the most questions correctly about books they read. Unfortunately, the in-person competition was canceled due to COVID-19. However, my students read over 400 books this year, so I am piloting a way to still hold the competition but virtually using the Schoology platform and BigBlueButton conferencing. I don’t know if this has been done before, but my students and I are really excited about holding this competition.

What was your favorite class or instructor when you were in school?

I can’t pick just one class or instructor because I had a great experience overall. My K-12 coursework was amazing with instructors, like Betty Bush and Georgeann Burch. I liked taking apart computers in Martin Wolske’s course; that’s something that I would love to do with my students now. My practicums and student teaching experiences were also exceptional.

Any regrets such as a class you wish you had taken, a club you should have joined, an event you weren’t able to go to, etc.?

I don’t have any regrets. I felt as though I made the most of my experience when I lived in Champaign-Urbana. I tried many different things and learned a lot. If anything, it might have been cool to take more classes on topics such as comics/graphic novels, library buildings, and diversity/inclusion. Granted, these topics are of personal interest to me, so I tend to read a lot about them in my free time anyway.

Favorite meme?

I’m a bit obsessed with the meme linked here because it involves a cute cat, and I think it does convey a concept that we all can relate to from time-to-time right about now. Click here to see Kate’s meme.

Would you rather fight 100 duck-sized horses, or one horse-sized duck?

I’d take on the one horse-sized duck because I’d be able to be strategic. I think I’d be able to make friends with the duck, and then I’d have a huge duck as a pet.

Cat or dog or ???

I don’t have any pets, but I think a white-haired blue-eyed cat would be cute.

Now that we’ve gotten to know the current members of Team Awesome, let’s take a stroll down memory lane and find out what our Team alums are up to.

Steven Smidl graduated in Spring 2013 and is currently in Chicago, working as a Media Center Director for Rich Central High School in Olympia Fields. But stop the press! He just received an offer to become the Chief School Business Official for Cooperative Association of Special Education DuPage. (!!!)

What do you remember best about your days as a GA? Any funny/crazy stories you can share?

I remember just having genuine conversations with Karla, Jill, and Matt. They were supervisors that were authentic and honest.  I loved having food conversations with the TA’s during our long nights for online classes especially with Kinyetta because she had some delicious takeout!

One story would be persuading one of the GAs to put KAM’s on a Bar Crawl and then having some people resist especially when it was in the middle of the crawl and not the last bar.  I found it to be humorous but it was a good time.

Do you find yourself using your Team Awesome skills in your current life?

As a librarian, I have consistently used my skills to work with teachers or students in troubleshooting technical issues or completing screencasts and webinars.

What was your favorite class or instructor when you were in school?

Even though I enjoyed a few classes, I think the one teacher that had the biggest impression on me since leaving was Dr. Robert Burger. His two administrative classes on Finance and Management were beneficial as a solo librarian and transitioning to become a School Business Official.

Any regrets such as a class you wish you had taken, a club you should have joined, an event you weren’t able to go to, etc.?

I have no regrets.

Favorite meme?

Either the Willy Wonka but the Lori Lightfoot has been gold!

Would you rather fight 100 duck-sized horses, or one horse-sized duck?

Bring on the herd!

Cat or dog or ???

None. I am not an animal person.