{"id":109300,"date":"2016-02-22T11:20:57","date_gmt":"2016-02-22T16:20:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=109300"},"modified":"2016-02-22T16:28:39","modified_gmt":"2016-02-22T21:28:39","slug":"full-time-student-meets-full-time-employee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2016\/02\/full-time-student-meets-full-time-employee\/","title":{"rendered":"Full-Time Student Meets Full-Time Employee"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When the question is: \u201cApple or PC?\u201d Brian Kelleher \u201917 (SFA), answers with a rueful admission.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve loved PCs all my life, but I\u2019ve recently become a fan of Apple because of all the tools they give me,\u201d he says, then adds with a smile, \u201cIt\u2019s something I argue about with people all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>While Kelleher can handle either operating system with ease, his reasons for choosing one or the other relate directly to his dual responsibilities as full-time student and full-time web developer in University Communications. While he says he does occasionally feel sleep-deprived, this hard-working undergraduate still manages to thrive while balancing the demands of two important roles.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"grey-sidebar floating-sidebar col-xs-12 col-sm-4\">\n  <\/p>\n<h3>Your News, Your Way, Every Day<\/h3>\n<p>Want to stay on top of the headlines? The University\u2019s daily updated news site was recently redesigned with you in mind. <em>UConn Today<\/em> now offers several subscription options to deliver content to you according to the subjects you want or the regularity you seek.<\/p>\n<p>Readers can opt to receive news coverage through customized RSS feeds or by email \u2013 daily, weekly, or monthly, depending on how often you want to catch up.<\/p>\n<p>The site features a rich diversity of content, with links to articles, photo galleries, videos, and the University\u2019s social media accounts, as well as the latest media coverage of the University in the local, regional, and national news.<\/p>\n<p>Videos and photo galleries \u2013 from Jonathan\u2019s recent visit to NYC to historical images and seasonal shots \u2013 showcase the campus and its people.<\/p>\n<p>Content can now be shared easily through email and social media. Within each and every story, video, and photo gallery, readers have the option to post the item to their own Facebook page and Twitter feed with pre-written posts.<\/p>\n<p>Whenever and however you want to learn about the people making news at the University, UConn Today\u00a0will deliver.<\/aside>\n<p>In fact, his skills can clearly be seen on the latest iteration of the University\u2019s primary news source, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/\">UConn Today<\/a><\/em>. Working alongside seasoned web pros, graphic designers, writers, and editors, his first \u2018real job\u2019 after being hired was helping to get the newly redesigned site up and running on a tight schedule.<\/p>\n<p>A native of Newington, Conn., Kelleher was like a lot of other high school juniors and seniors when he was thinking about college. He admits that the lure of getting away from familiar surroundings was pretty attractive, and UConn wasn\u2019t terribly high on his list of schools.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAll that changed after I finally decided to come for a tour,\u201d he says, \u201cbecause I immediately felt at home, and I knew I could take advantage of all the things UConn offered.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As it turns out, one of the things he was offered before he\u2019d even officially started classes was a job as a student employee in the Graduate School, and that\u2019s where he got his first taste of web design. He\u2019d taken several courses in computer programming while he was in high school, and was initially hired to do some basic IT tasks and provide departmental support for various computer issues that invariably pop up in busy offices. But then the Graduate School decided to redo its website, and Kelleher was asked if he\u2019d like to help out.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was hooked,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019d never touched a web code before but I loved it, and that\u2019s when I decided to switch from a computer engineering track to the Digital Media Department, where I\u2019m concentrating on web design and development.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>One of the things that he loves about his academic department is its emphasis on independent thinking and project development as a way of measuring student success. In fact, it was while he was taking a course in advanced web design that Kelleher found out about the job opening in University Communications.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI decided to go for it,\u201d he says, \u201cknowing that I would be competing for a position against a lot of other qualified applicants. But by the middle of my sophomore year, I was pretty confident that this was a career path I wanted to take, and when I looked at the requirements for the job I knew that I would at least be competitive.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The search committee agreed, and at the end of May 2015 he was hired as a full-time employee with the immediate assignment of helping on the redesign of <em>UConn Today<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>So how does the \u2018new kid in the department\u2019 react to immediately jumping in on a\u00a0high-profile\u00a0project?<\/p>\n<p>He&#8217;s diplomatic in answering questions about the challenges of working in a pivotal\u00a0role \u2013 where he often encountered multiple different suggestions on how to make a strong product even better. \u201cTrying to translate the sometimes chaotic world of web development to those who produce great content has been a new experience,&#8221; he says.\u00a0\u201cI like to think of it as providing \u2018technical translations\u2019 to people who may not fully understand what I do, but who are so appreciative when they see the end result. It\u2019s been a great experience learning to work with this team.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A critical part of the development of any website is knowing how everyone interacts with the site \u2013 from the content producers to the users.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere was a point in the process when I realized that Brian had learned so much about the news business and the collaboration between all of the contributors \u2013 writers, editors, photographers, videographers, and social media folks \u2013 \u00a0that he became an honorary member of the news team,\u201d says Kristen Cole, director of news and editorial communications.\u00a0\u201cOf course, it would be great if we could make him an official member of the news team so that he would only be dedicated to our site.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But after launching the subscription service for the news site this month, he\u00a0will be moving on to other web development projects. Already on his &#8216;to do&#8217; list are assignments for the admissions office in Storrs and UConn Health in Farmington.<\/p>\n<p>With such heavy commitments to work and school, Kelleher doesn\u2019t have a lot of free time for outside activities, but he does make an exception for some things. He admits to being a huge sports fan. When asked \u201cRed Sox or Yankees?\u201d he says \u201cYankees.\u201d When asked \u201cPats or Giants?\u201d he says \u201cGiants.\u201d But when asked, \u201cUConn Huskies or &#8230; ?\u201d he quickly replies, \u201cThere is no \u2018or\u2019 \u2013\u00a0I\u2019m a huge UConn sports fan, and I <em>bleed blue<\/em> all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Brian Kelleher &#8217;17 (SFA) successfully combines dual roles as a student and a web developer for University Communications. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":109434,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[156,1914,2225,2234],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[1935],"class_list":["post-109300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-profile","category-sfa","category-uconn-storrs","category-university-life"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-03 12:28:38","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109300"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109300\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":109463,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109300\/revisions\/109463"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/109434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109300"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=109300"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=109300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}