AISB’s Database Specialist Alex Relea collaborates with all departments in the school to manage, organize, and present data clearly for the school community. Three years ago, he transitioned from the Secondary Attendance Office, where he interacted with students daily, making students’ busy and stressful mornings brighter with a smile. Now Alex has transitioned to being a Database Specialist, in the IT department, managing grade level rosters and managing the events within every department of the school. 

What follows is his story, in Alex’s own words:

The first part [of my role in IT] is the interactions, because [in the past] at the attendance office, I would have been in constant interactions with the students. I knew all of them by name, and that was so nice. Even in the morning, if they were late, I would say, ‘Stay calm, [calm] down. It’s okay. You are late. What is your favorite song of the day? And let’s play it.’

[Though, throughout my time spent at attendance] I discovered that I enjoy, not manipulating, but presenting data in a clear way. That’s the thing that I discovered during my stay here. Also, this place helped me a lot to organize myself. I was not that good at the timeline and the organization, but here, I changed.

In the IT department, I can be more creative. And that was always the thing that attracted me at Uni. But that’s why I wanted to do marketing, to do commercials, advertising. It gave me creativity. It gave me the chance to do something unique and funny because that’s what I felt in that moment, that this is what the commercials and advertising in Romania are missing. They have a recipe, [which is] to repeat the benefits of the product at least three times, and that’s it. They are really serious [about their way of presenting how fancy they are].

The goal for me for this year is to automate the processes, try not to make so much labor. Using AI and Google scripts, I want to try to avoid the mistakes that a person can make, because I am data oriented and I really like my data to be clear for me to understand and for other people to receive it. [In the next few years, I hope to further accomplish my goals in] programming and to understand how to talk with ChatGPT and how it can help me in life, because I started doing scripts. So what I would have worked for four hours doing manual labor, now I have to think [for] an hour, say what I want to accomplish, and do that.