The Caribbean Institute of Technology (CIT) is the first school of its kind in Jamaica and the Caribbean. The school’s mandate is to train industry standard programmers in a ten month intensive training course after which they are able to rival a four year college graduate for a job as a computer programmer. I was among the pioneering batch of fifty-six students. As a student the Integrated Academic System (IAS) which is the schools networking system was in the teething stages. Upon graduating from CIT ten months later, I was offered a job as an associate network administrator where I would help to develop the system.
The system is all encompassing and handles all the administrative and academic functions. The process starts with the perspective student who is able to get all the requisite course information online. An application is made, followed by an interview process. Upon being accepted the student then registers online and is able to pay fees, receive course schedules etc. The faculty and staff members have their different portals that allow them post assignments, track attendance, modify student records and disseminate pertinent information. My role as associate network administrator was to execute minor changes to the networking system while acting as primary liaison between the faculty and the student population as it relates to hardware and software needs. The creation and deletion of records, file backup and transfer, hardware and software trouble shooting and installation, testing of new software and antivirus monitoring and maintenance were a few of my daily tasking. The system started out simple; in fact, there was no allocated budget for system maintenance and upkeep so we were using what we had and improvising as we go along. The server room was a five by ten space with loose cables dangling from the ceiling. There was no fancy patch panels,