ITS employs more than 100 students to help us accomplish the many things we do. Here are profiles of a few of these fabulous individuals.
Allen Smith ’19 is a Classics major born in Springfield, Massachusetts, and raised in Decatur, Georgia, though he’s lived in Mexico for a couple summers and a semester, as well as in Puerto Rico for a year. He comes from an outrageously nerdy and wonderful family that consists of a mom, a dad, and a sister who are an astrophysics professor, a mechanical engineering professor, and a mid-PhD music theory grad student, respectively. Since he mostly remembered snow from his ancient past as “magical fun fluffy weather stuff,” he wanted to go to a college that had the genuine article, and Carleton fit the bill. Now having three proper winters’ worth of experience, Allen can now say with certainty that snow is, in fact, “magical fun fluffy weather stuff.” He splits his time between his job in ITS Hardware, where he’s worked since his sophomore year, and his job as a swing dance instructor for the PE department. He enjoys games of all types, be they video, board, card, mind, or reindeer, as well as reading good or so-bad-that’s-it’s-good-again fiction. He loves listening to music, producing it himself on his French horn or with his own voice, and dancing to it with an amount reckless abandon that varies depending on how many people are watching. He believes that living is more important than not dying, can quote more of Star Wars than is probably healthy, and once watched a pot boil.
Thu Nguyen ‘19 is a Environmental Studies/Dance double major from Maple Grove, Minnesota who’s worked in DataSquad for the last year. Within Datasquad, Thu works to manage and track student progress on the DataSquad blog, and is currently writing the documentation for a newly designed physics equipment database. Outside of class and work, Thu enjoys dancing, eating cheese, getting off campus, and cooking and baking, and she is also a director for the Experimental Dance Board, and is a co-founder and co-president of the Carleton College Cheese Club.
Adante Ratzlaff ’18 is a computer science major who has worked for web services for the last two years. When not studying or working, he’s most interested in hobbies that have a creative component: writing, tabletop role-playing games, and even martial arts, to some extent. He tries to apply the same interest to his work with the web services group, especially when he’s designing web content or a tool to give users the best experience. One of his claims to fame is having created a model of the data relationships between campus software systems. These diagrams are now being distributed nationally by a research think tank. Next year, he hopes to continue on the same path with a software development job focused on user experience.
Martin Green ’18 is an Event Team lead in PEPS, studying Computer Science and actively looking for work in software. Since he’s an L.A. native, Californians collectively gasped when they heard of Martin’s desire to attend college somewhere cooler. They simply couldn’t believe it when that place turned out to be Minnesota. Martin maintains that he simply “went all in,” and that is one of the pillars of Martin’s personality. His technical wizardry consistently adds to our collective strength at ITS. He is an avid swing dancer who likes to keep his moves fresh (although not funky, because that’s not really part of swing dancing). In the summer, Martin will graduate and begin a new adventure. His good humor, easy smile, and troubleshooting skills will be missed.
Eileen Lower ’20 is a History major from near Sedona Arizona. They’re the CEDI liaison to CSA Senate and play rugby, but they’re primarily known around campus for their work in ITS. As a CarlTech, they provide the first line of support to students, faculty, and staff. They’re also an SAS Tech (Support Associate Supervisor), which means they provide additional backup to the ITS professional staff: training new employees, providing after-hours on-call support, and addressing more complex or persistent issues. Additionally, they work in Desktop Systems to aid in deploying software and operating systems across campus. Eileen misses the mountains but having four seasons makes up for it. When they’re not busy at work or studying, they can be found cooking, discussing art with their roommate, or exploring the Arb; seeing how it changes over the course of the year is one of their favorite parts of living at Carleton.