Read about how Thaddaeus's STAR status landed him a position as a university IT Specialist, where his self-taught tech skills and passion for helping others are his greatest credentials.
One of the things Thaddaeus loves about his job is that he gets to help others. He is responsible for technical support in his academic department, on everything from projects to meetings to events. He guides faculty, staff, and students through difficult technical challenges and does projects of his own. His skills have been critical in the recent transition to online learning.
When Thaddaeus started at the university, he had no formal training in IT or tech support. He had developed all his skills over a series of jobs where he leveraged his affinity for computers into office-oriented technical work. He taught himself video editing, audio editing, and even to work with some operating systems. He also worked as a medical transcriptionist and a freelance designer. “A throughline to everything has been, just working within tech, working in IT. I have always sort of gravitated towards computer work and computer repair and stuff like that.”
Thaddaeus is also a professional performer. He has roles in local theatrical productions and works as a standardized patient actor to teach medical students effective and empathetic patient interaction. These theatrical projects provide an artistic outlet and make him an excellent communicator and public speaker. He is comfortable in front of an audience, skilled at explaining complex information, and good at giving and receiving feedback.
When Thaddaeus was first starting out, his dream was to design theme parks. While this is not where his career took him, he has found his own pathway to jobs that allow him to use his creativity, problem solving and interpersonal skills to create a positive learning environment at the university. “I’ve gotten a lot of satisfaction just being helpful and helping people find things or helping people connect dots that they didn’t really know were connected.”
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