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As part of the Student Titan Employment Program (STEP) at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, computer science major David Hietpas works with Polk Library to create a new online service for students—an easier way to discover reading in other places than their textbooks.

Name: David Hietpas
Role: Technology assistant
Department: Polk Library
Major: Computer science
Year: Senior
Hometown: Freedom, Wis.

What specific tasks do you do for your internship?

“As a technology assistant, my tasks are to develop computer applications for the library. The computer applications I develop are used by students here at the University.”

How is the internship benefiting your education?

“The internship has allowed me to develop professional skills outside of class and coursework.”

How is the internship benefiting your future?

“The internship gave me insight into how to work in a professional environment with the skills I’ve obtained at the university.”

How is the internship benefiting your department?

“The application I’ve developed is providing Polk Library with new resources to help reach and benefit the student body. The application I developed was the Leisure Reading website. http://oshlib.wisconsin.edu/leisure/

“The Leisure Reading website allows visitors to browse a specific library collection, which is also known as the Leisure Reading Collection. The collection has many books such as mystery, romance, adventure and many more. I am currently working on more applications for the library.”

What has been your favorite part of the internship?

“The part of the internship I enjoyed was the broad spectrum of projects. No project was the same. Each project has a new, unique experience.”

Have you faced any challenges? If so, detail how you overcame them.

“I had faced many challenges during my internship. I was required to learn new concepts and computer languages. With the basic coursework knowledge acquired in classes, this gave me the ability to adapt myself to these new computer languages quickly.”

Supervisor Comments

“David recently built a website for the library’s Leisure Reading Collection,” said Maccabee Levine, emerging technologies librarian. “He is currently building another service that students have requested—an easier way to organize group study events at Polk.

“David is a great STEP intern. He’s a hard worker, always eager to learn and apply some new technical skill. And the web development skills he learns here relate directly to his computer science major and his career goals.”

The Student Titan Employment Program (STEP) offers students quality educational experiences while providing faculty and staff members with needed assistance in areas such as media services, student-faculty research, supplemental instruction, library assistance, instructional technology and academic computing support, and Web page development and maintenance. The program is funded through a one-time investment of $500,000. More than 110 students are funded through STEP.