Hello there! My name is Jerry Vogel, and I am currently an intern at iCivics. I’ve been working here since the end of May, and it’s been a crazy ride all the way through. But let me tell you, it’s been fun. Allow me to tell you the abridged version of my life as a part of the iCivics family.

I started off working as a standard tech intern. I tested code and a few programs, sifted through databases for various pieces of information, and performed other simple—but useful—tasks. It wasn’t much, but it was honest work. However, the real fun began in June. Our dearly beloved Curriculum Associate Molly Launceford announced that she was leaving the company to pursue a law degree and needed someone to take her spot as a member of the Support staff. She trained me on how to respond to inquiries from our educators, fill out the weekly report, and warned me that while the job may feel easy, work would soon ramp up. Not much happened in June or July with Support. Occasionally, a teacher reached out to ask about data privacy. Some questions about games came in and other pretty tame stuff. But then… the back to school season rolled around.

August has been a crazy month here at iCivics as the school year kicks off and teachers head back to the classroom - and begin using iCivics! As many of you may know, we released new features on our website! As a member of the Tech team, I worked on what we called the “site migration.” It’s tech speak for an upgrade. I helped make sure certain parts of our analytics worked correctly, but my main task was monitoring support inquiries from educators. And as soon as we migrated the site, the tickets started coming in. 

I could have never expected the rush that I’ve experienced as a part of the Support team. It’s been crazy! We’ve had a lot of teachers asking us for help and direction. And I have LOVED it. It’s been so much fun. I really feel like I’m making a difference to our users. Whenever I press send on a response detailing how to sync a Google Classroom class or a response telling someone that their bug has been resolved, I feel a twinge of happiness. It’s wonderful to be able to help so many people all from the comfort of my big desk chair. Knowing that what I am doing is not only helping the person I am responding to but many others experiencing the same issue brings a big smile to my face.

This is far from the end of my time at iCivics. My internship will be extending into December, and I’m looking forward to continuing my work here. Support does not end with back to school! I’m excited to see what comes of my time with the Support team. Then of course there’s programming—my true speciality. I’m looking forward to seeing what sorts of programs I will get to work on for iCivics. All I know is that whatever I do, it’s going to be a good time for me. And of course, it’ll make the experience of everyone who reads this better. We’re always looking to make iCivics as amazing as possible. I’m happy to do my part.

Written by Jerry Vogel

Jerry Vogel is a Computer Science student at Northeastern University currently working on the Tech and Support teams at iCivics. He loves to listen to music, cook, and watch videos of cute animals.