Hey all… This is the First Chapter in the Career & Academics Cornerstone Series:
“A Day in the Life of…”
Share your quirky experiences and your grand ambitions -
no scripts, no rehearsals - just a genuine slice of your world through your eyes.
[right]P.S.[/right]
[right]*Let’s try to keep it short and sweet… 
*[/right]
[right]Feel free to post your comments and queries.[/right]
Re: Cornerstone Series: A Day in the Life of…
University Professor
*Perhaps the most distinctive feature of my profession is the fact that there’s not a clear line that separates my work life from the rest of my life. Many of my interests and activities are related to my subject area, and my friends are usually colleagues who share similar interests. My work carries over into all aspects of my life, and that’s the way I like it! 
*
The Positives of what I do…
The Nuisances of my job…
and still have a couple more to go.A Quick Synopsis of My Roles and Responsibilities
Teaching:
Research:
Administration:
In the end, I see myself as an educator, and when I teach students, I’m forced to clarify my ideas and I’m often taken in directions which I hadn’t yet thought of myself.
[RIGHT]For a rather comical outlook of a Professor’s work day,
check out: http://www.frankritter.com/professor-day.html[/RIGHT]
Re: Cornerstone Series: A Day in the Life of...
i don't have much to contribute .....or perhaps i have a lot......!!!:)
may be i'll share something ....but for now i'll say.....this is a good thread ....n i like it very much!!!
:)
Re: Cornerstone Series: A Day in the Life of...
danke - merci :) glad you like it...
please don't hesitate in posting your experiences.
Re: Cornerstone Series: A Day in the Life of...
show's over folks :p
i'll be back with an even more "comprehensive" summary soon :D
Re: Cornerstone Series: A Day in the Life of...
I said... "short" :o and sweet... khair chalo whatever... some of it was funny.
Re: Cornerstone Series: A Day in the Life of...
Desimunda bhai, that was way too long! Such a cool thread. Can all the budhas please contribute so us youngsters can get a taste of what you guys go through :D ?
Re: Cornerstone Series: A Day in the Life of…
u asked for a day in the life of…comeon, comprehensively covered 10 hours of my day in a few mins time…what else can u ask for 
Re: Cornerstone Series: A Day in the Life of...
Oh my goodness me Re: DM's post!!
I had to double check it was a guy who posted! too much detail lovey :p
I like this thread...I will begin posting inshallah when i qualify, so you people best pray that i do, otherwise you will never know what a wonderful life a primary school teacher has!
Re: Cornerstone Series: A Day in the Life of…
hope this fits the criteria now 
Systems Support Analyst
Roles & Responsibilites:
•Review, analyze and evaluate IT systems operations.
•Develop subject matter expertise in the software/hardware architecture for pre-deployed systems, including common configuration, database schema, procedures to carry out regular operations, and functions of various commonly used applications.
•Manage ticket queues for problems that were not resolved by level I/II/other support groups, contacting clients directly in order to further troubleshoot and resolve the complex issues.
•Based on personal experiences and judgment, utilize the appropriate existing internal and external knowledgebases, applications, and tools to find solutions for the problems.
•Perform root cause analysis in order to identify the cause of a specific problem.
•Make recommendations, determine and follow up the appropriate course of action with specific support groups in order to eliminate the problem and prevent it from occurring again.
•Technical writing – Document details of the problem and solution for further expansion/rectification of the current knowledgebases.
Likes:
•Constant learning experience and challenging environment – as technology changes, so does the support environment and you have to learn new things, keep with the pace or you are left behind really quickly. You get free formal training to upgrade your skills, and acquiring those additional skills can prove to be very useful even when u change companies.
•Investigative/research work – a lot of problems that you come across don’t have a simple solution, and you have use a variety of resources at your disposal and sift through a vast wealth of knowledge in order to resolve the issues.
•Technical Writing - if you come across a problem for which there is no documentation, or sometimes when the documentation is outdated, you get to publish the problem details and resolutions in the knowledgebase to help others who might come across the same problem in the future. The exposure to writing the functional and technical specifications is a good experience.
•Consulting - provide feedback to developers/other groups to improve the current implemented systems to eliminate existing problems so that it’s easier for the users and for support to deal with issues.
•Develop superior communication skills – whenever dealing with problems, you come across users and support groups with varying degrees of expertise, so you learn to communicate effectively with them at their level.
Dislikes:
•Often, shift work is needed and sometimes the environment also requires oncall or 24/7 availiability - you get used to it after a while, but it does interfere with your personal life from time to time.
Re: Cornerstone Series: A Day in the Life of…
:k: Desi… you must really like your job … only one Dislike mashaAllah
C’mon ppl what’s taking you this long.
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What an awesome thread. I hope other people esp. accountants will come and contribute.
Umar: What subject do you teach?
DM: oh my gosh, your job just reading about it made me dizzy. It's so complicated!
Re: Cornerstone Series: A Day in the Life of…
hmm
cool thread :k:
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^^ cool shool tey theek hai kuriye... tell us what you do and what your job entails :)
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^
hahaha i knew that was coming :p
im feeling lazy but Umar just for u aap kya yaad karo ge :D
content developer/ instructional designer
go to office. jhak maarein. come back. :D
j/k
Well, we make online courses :D the kinda courses that virtual universities have on their websites.
So basically you can either do "content development" or "instructional design"
different companies have different ways of dealing with this, and have different steps designed to tackle this process, from the initial steps of gathering info to put into the course to the final step of having a finished multimedia course. different companies also use different software tools for the development of the course and different interfaces for the final presentation. we r simple people so we use MSword and Flash till now. but we r thinking of changing these tools and adopting more specialised ones that are created specifically for this purpose.
in our company:
lemi describe the process in simple terms
content development is when you research material on a course thru the net or thru books etc or write it urself. u have to paraphrase copyrighted material coz you can't just maarofy chaapa ie plagiarise :D sometimes u have to research laws or specific info as well. it depends on the topic of ur course how u do this n if its boring or enjoyable.
instructional design [ID] is when you convert this raw text content / information to a form where a tech person can look at it and develop it into multimedia files (Which is the final step of "course implementation" after content development and instructional design).
in ID you have to divide the text into different scenes for the multimedia end product (we use flash), add detailed instructions for multimedia effects that the multimedia programmers (in our case flash programmers) can put in for each scene, add relevant pictures and any other multimedia add-ons you want, and so on. bottomline is you have to be creative and make sure the info is presented effectively to the student, in the best possible way.
so my job is basically a mix of instructional designer and content developer.
:)
this is a new field that has developed recently. its a developing field with a lot of scope. i dont plan to make this my permanent career but so far its been a great experience and i have learnt a lot as well.
:)
any Qn's? shoot em off to me here or via PM
wa salam
Re: Cornerstone Series: A Day in the Life of…
^^ so u r part of that lazy development team who can’t fix issues with e-learning courses that clients have in my organization…courses done with the assessment but not appearing as complete etc 
j/k
thats neat irem :k:
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"courses done with the assessment but not appearing as complete etc "
whatdya mean DM? first time im hearing dat so plz explain???
yeah its neat innit 
trust me its much much much better than PROGRAMMING 
but i do miss programming too. HMMMM
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^^ Sorry, didn’t read this reply till today
what i mean is that we get issues from users where they do some course online/electronically, and after completing it, they do the assessments/tests as well (also on the comp still), pass it, but the course still doesn’t get marked as complete (built-in feature that records the persons progress and once the course is “complete” with the assessment, allows them to print out the results/emails or notifies the group which required them to take the course in the first place that this person has finished the course etc)…and these folks have a due date by which they have to complete the course so they don’t get “flagged” for compliance by the company, and can get in trouble if they don’t complete the course in the alloted time…
in those cases, i have to find out who the course developers are and contact them to see whats the workaround for this issue…cuz if it happens, it happens to everyone then for that course, not just one or two people…and the course developers are so lazy replying/fixing the issue
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^^
oh…OK…I see what u r saying
that sucks…i mean, that shudn’t happen…such a dumb mistake on the part of developers/ QA ppl…
elementary Dear Watson 
Re: Cornerstone Series: A Day in the Life of...
I don't want to go into details but my job is of the same nature of as of DM, its as I am reading my own job description here.
Likes:
You allways learn something new. Something is allways going on, so you don't get bored in the job. There is never a one solution to the problem(s) but it can allways be different depending on various circumstances. The feeling of success and accomplishment when a problem is solved and lots of communication with others.
Dislikes:
Same as DM, weekly 24/7 on call at least 7-8 times in a year. Before it didnt bother me when I was single not now it can be irritating sometimes, but its mostly not that bad, as calls during nights and weekends are rare now.