Your classroom’s Wi-Fi fails right before the biggest midterm of the year. Humidity causes water damage to your MAC’s internal hardware, erasing everything. A teacher loses access to her e-mail after she is accidentally terminated.

Disasters? Not with SMU’s IT Help Desk to save the day. We owe a big “thank you” to the help desk team and their manager, Lauren Nelson.

“The help desk literally saved my life,” SMU sophomore Courtenay Lowe said.

When humidity caused water damage to Lowe’s laptop, she left it with the desk for two days to be fixed. She also got a new keyboard.

“Suddenly, everything I needed was back,” Lowe said.

For Nelson and her team, problems like these are all in a day’s work.

“I love being able to support users towards meeting their goals that they set for themselves and supporting efforts for research on campus,” said Nelson, who has been working at SMU for nine years.

SMU senior Madison Rice takes calls and helps students and faculty with computer needs. She loves working for Nelson.

“She’s an amazing boss. She’s super flexible and chill, and understands we’re students, and class is a priority,” Rice said.

The IT work environment is fast-paced. The Help Desk supports students, faculty, staff, alumni, retirees, parents and prospective students. It also facilitates emergency classroom response.

“It’s busy and rewarding and challenging all at the same time,” Nelson said.

When she’s not helping students, Nelson spends her time with her three rescue dogs, two retrievers and one pit-bull. After a busy day at work, she cooks a vegetarian meal and relaxes on the patio with her rescues.

“They’re crazy big and they eat a lot,” Nelson said.

Nelson said she couldn’t imagine spending her time at work anywhere but SMU.

“I feel that I’m a part of something very positive, and I find it highly rewarding,” Nelson said. “I love the sense of community. It really does function as if it’s its own city within itself.”