A Day in the Life of a DDaT Student: Service Desk Manager

My name is Matthew Churchfield.  I’m 21 years old, and this year I was part of the 10 week summer DDaT student placement in the Scottish Government.  I’m now moving into my fourth and final year in Ethical Hacking at Abertay University in Dundee.

During my placement I worked in the iTECS team, providing customer support across the Scottish Government.   The project I was working on required me to support the migration of mailboxes and mobile phones from BlackBerry UEM to SCOTS Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft Intune.

I was responsible for solving email and mobile phone issues from iFix tickets logged by customers.  If a ticket required more assistance, I would provide one-on-one support to customers via MS Teams video calls, guiding them through the problem until it was solved.

Some of the highlights during my placement included visiting Saughton House where I met the ITECS teams.  I also got to sort through hundreds of phones which was challenging but fun!  Another big highlight was a day in Victoria Quay where I met the other students on the placement.  We got to experience some Agile training which was very helpful, interesting, and enjoyable.

The placement enabled me to develop my customer service and support skills, and I gained a great deal of experience in solving a wide range of problems at very short notice.  My public speaking skills have greatly improved, and my confidence in my own abilities has increased considerably.

My plans after this placement will be to continue my Ethical Hacking degree, and after graduation I’ll be looking at jobs in either cyber security or something in the IT professions.

I’m very grateful for the opportunity to have been part of the student placement programme, and for all the experience and skills it has given me.