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My experience as an intern in the IT field has greatly influenced me into making it as a career in the future. Technology is improving day by day, and I believe that having the experience and skills necessary would keep me on the top of the competition as many companies and businesses rely on technology for their everyday task.

I also discovered things that I like and didn’t like when it comes with IT troubleshooting. Having to rely on technology is helpful and efficient, but it is also its has its’ downside. Network problems are common occurrence and many users would experience loss of internet connection and downed servers resulting in a loss of work production. Also there are always updates to keep track off, especially when it comes to security to combat any form of virus that can breach the system that could have adverse effect in the company. This is what makes the IT field the more challenging and rewarding, in which you need to be on the top of your game and a room for improvements.

I finally have reached my last week interning in Maybank. I could have taken it easy for the last remaining days but instead I planned to double my effort on my productivity, as I accomplished doing as much troubleshooting on tickets and solving issues around the different offices in the building. I did not want to leave a negative lasting impression for myself and also as a representative of Enderun

On my last day we had a double celebration, it was my supervisors’ birthday and also a send off for me. We had an office space set up to accommodate as much people that could come and they had arrange all sorts of filipino food and a birthday cake to go with it. I also made a speech and thanked all my supervisors and the IT admin crew for the wonderful oppurtunity and the skills I have learned in the process.

If I were to compare my first and last day of my internship then I would say that I had no idea on what I was getting myself into and no IT work experience to show for. The learning curve was fast pace and it requires a lot of memorization when dealing with IP address and troubleshooting the different PCs and applications. It took awhile for me to get use to with all this information overload going on, but I kept on learning and in the process I got better and gained a new skill. With this expereince I am now more confident in myself and I hope to make of use of my new skills in the future.

One more week to go after this! I made it through this week feeling accomplished as I tackled new problems and finding a solution in the process. One particular issue was dealing with a printer and connection issues. I was called upon to connect a PC to a printer in which I’ve done dozen of times and was a walk in the park by now. Only to come across a problem I haven’t faced before.

The PC showed that it was connected to the printer but the device configuration was greyed out. This had me going through every steps on setting up a a printer and still I can’t seem to find any solution. I checked the connection port of the printer and it showed it was connected but the printer device was still greyed out and could not print when I tried printing a test page. I tried to repair the device and it took me a good hour for it to update. It still came up the same and I was left dumbfounded as to why this was giving me such difficulty. When one final thought that came through my mind, I decided to uninstall the printer and re install the printer driver. This would take awhile compared to repairing the device due to the files needed to install a driver. It left me no choice but to do it and hope that it works.

A few hours later the new driver file was installed and now I am back to square one and I then proceeded to configure and install the printer. It was a success, the printer was now connected and the device icon was not greyed out. It took me a good while to figure it out but I came out on top in the end.

This week was for the most part was pretty slow, and at times the workload seemed to be the same ; configuring Outlook accounts, password resets and users login issues. I started to fall into a routine and I felt that I was not improving as much. I wrote as much notes as I can for all the troubleshooting issues I have done, and also asked my fellow coworkers and interns about other issues and solutions just to expand my knowledge. If there was ever an opportunity to shadow sir Carlito in troubleshooting at a different office I would jump for the opportunity just so I could get off the computer screen for a change in scenery.

The people I’ve worked with made the whole work week enjoyable and entertaining. Even though the work got boring it was fun working with others and joking around , and I am glad that I’m not the only intern for the duration of my internship. As an IT intern we are not robots that is required to work for nine hours straight, on the contrary having fun has helped us increase productivity and learning.

This week turned out to be a good and bad expereince, the bad news was that the server networks were all down and many computers where affected by it, in which many users experienced no internet connectivity and application issues. During the five day work week all of us intern were busy troubleshooting the downed computer networks and in addition to that we were reconfiguring multiple applications, this turned out to be good thing because it challenged us to find solutions to achieve the desired results. There were many trial and error on my part and I managed to overcome the issues.

In my first experience in resolving the no internet connectivity I first checked the IPv4 address of the PC then I proceeded pinging the IPv4, if there is a reply then the network is good, if not then a request timed out will prompt on the screen. Since there was a request timed out I went ahead to reset the internet connectivity, yet it still showed no connectivity. Fortunately we had a group chat in messenger and I messaged my concern and sir Carlito walked me through step by step on the procedure, it seems as though the problem was the current IPv4 address on the server that the PC was connected to. The only solution was to change the IPv4 to a new address and see if it works. The process was simple, I just had to access the network adapter and manually change the current IPv4 address to a new one, in order to get a new IPv4 address sir Carlito had to scan the system for one that I can use. Once it was changed I then ping the new IPv4 address and see if it has a reply. It seemed it work and now we have internet connectivity.

Once I got the hang of setting up the internet connection I now had the confidence to troubleshoot on my own. When ever there was I problem I would volunteer to resolve the issue and I would also take one of the interns with me and teach them the same process.

During my fourth week, there were a lot of down time. With the new interns and only sir Carlito to teach us, we all took our turn shadowing him; unfortunately he could only accommodate two at a time while the rest of the us decided to work on a few tickets. This amount of down time got me reflecting on the work culture here. I found out that all of the staffs in the IT Admin are outsourced from the same IT company, and they are not counted as regular employees of Maybank. This made the work environment “chill” and professional at the same time, as there is no strict boss that is micromanaging the IT Admin and they just go on to do what ever troubleshooting issues that is need of them. Nonetheless the people are enjoyable to work with and are always there to answer any of my questions and as an added bonus they share some Filipino snacks to me just so they could see my reaction, while I see it as a form of hospitality which is one of the redeeming features of Filipinos.

Monday June 24 was like any other day, the usual tickets and troubleshooting. I’ve started to get the hang of things in regards to installation and configurations of applications and printer set up. It was on that day I heard the news that six new interns would be showing up the next day. My supervisors then assigned me as the head of the interns, and to show them the ropes as to what I’ve learned so far.

The following day I was greeted with hellos and good morning by the six new interns. They were all from the same college majoring in electronic engineering. My workmates thought it would be funny if I acted like a boss and interviewed them. I couldn’t keep a straight face so I failed on that matter. Still it was a way to break the ice and to get to know one another. As the Intern Head I, my first task was to show them around the office building, I led them to the eating area in the 4th floor and also the one on the second floor and briefly describe what I’ve done so far and what to expect.

After the short tour, we then head back to the IT Admin in which I had them watch over me on how to set up applications and configuring outlook emails. I had them try it out on their own till they all got the hang of it. When it came to the advance troubleshooting issues, it was sir Carlito who took over and taught the group. The work day turned out to be not so busy for me. Since the some of the interns took were shadowing sir Carlito and going to other offices. Whereas I was teaching the ones left behind on the tickets and phone calls. All in all the whole work week was full of fun and I managed to experience the role of teaching others as an added bonus.

There was only Sir Carlito that I shadowed for the duration of the five day work week. In this week I was now proficient in the basic troubleshooting and needed little supervision. It was now time for me to take it up a notch, I volunteered to assist the other Maybank branches via telephone call and remote assistance. They use the term tickets for any troubleshooting problems that appears on the Maybank service desk browser. There are many tickets to choose from, you just have to decide if you are capable of resolving the issue. My first ticket was installing an application in the Cebu branch, I felt confident that I could do this task myself and also Sir Carlito was there to assist me anytime. The whole process proceeded smoothly and I completed my first remote assistance task.

At times I would forget the steps on certain troubleshooting issues and I thought it was best that I write the all the procedures down. So I asked Sir Carlito to help me with my notes as I noted all the issues that I have been doing thus far. From there, whenever we set out to solve an issue I always had my notes with me and I would annotate anything new. This helped me to become more confident when setting out to do a task by myself and also saves me time from redoing mistakes.

I made it through the first week in my internship in Maybank as part of the IT Admin Team. Having been taught how to install programs and application in windows computer via remote control access control. Basically, I as the troubleshooter would ask for the IPv4 Address of the user, then I would prompt a request to control their PC in which the user would need to accept and once that is done then I can access their computer screen on my computer and commence with the installations process. This technology is new to me and I was impressed on how it worked. What impressed me the most was that all the computers and laptop connected to the Maybank server can be remote access and be controlled. As an IT Intern my job not only consist on desk work but also having to troubleshoot other offices in the building. The most common troubleshooting problem I had to deal with was to install the users PC to the office printer. I thought it would be easy as to setting up a home printer but it was more complicated than that. Since every PCs and Printers are connected to a server with their own IPv4 Address. I had to make sure that the PC is connected to the office printer with the correct IPv4 Address.

Most of the car parking slot in BGC is set to P40 for three hours, for the succeeding hour, they charge up to P50! If your independent who don’t rely on your parents for a source of income then you will know the damage it will cost you. So if your internship is from 8:30 AM to 5:30 PM then you would be paying a whopping P290 per day! But there is still hope around the corner, and I literally mean around the corner of 9th Ave, called the Parkade Gallery. It may not be free parking but it is affordable, they charge a flat rate of P100 from 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM. It has three basement parking which has 481 slots in total. It is best to arrive there at 6:00 AM and no later than 8:00 AM due to the influx of drivers competing to get a slot and you may lose out and end up paying the regular parking rate which P40 for the first 4 hours and P10 for the succeeding hour . So make sure you arrive no later than 8:00 AM and you should be good to go.

Your at work and its time to eat! but you forgot your homemade meal and you only got a few change left. Lets say you have P100 for food and your on your break, well your just in luck because the Maybank Head Office is located right next to Bonifacio High Street and there are many cheap eats out there, my personal favorite is the Ministop convenience store. You can buy a one piece fried chicken with rice and a drink for P89 and you’ll be full in no time. I suggest you pick the chicken breast because its bigger than the drumstick. If your stingy and just plan old cheap then you can opt for the delivery meal service in the office. For just P65 you can get a rice meal depending what they have to offer. If you like to live on the wild side and get free food because you blew off your allowance the prior weekend then you can indulge yourself on the free water at dispenser they have around the office, you could choose from cold, warm, or hot water at your pleasure.