Ben Froelich

My Passion for Networking

Since high school, I have had a strong love towards computers ranging from how they are deployed, how they are interconnected with each other, and the overall infrastructure they communicate with. I started my future in IT as a IT Assistant at my local school district, which was Howards Grove School District. I had a range of things that fell into my territory, including but not limited to fixing/troubleshooting student/teacher devices, fixing/troubleshooting classroom technologies (SMART Boards, computer setups), and much more. This is how I got my start into computers.

When I got accepted into UW Stout, a lot more opportunities where coming my way. With a little more information under my belt, I was able to score an internship at Grande Cheese Company as an IT Infrastructure Intern, which I would do for the next three summers. This has also allowed me to do more complicated network related tasks at Howards Grove School District.

Along with big steps with my career, there has been personal steps made as well. A couple years ago I started making a home lab that is related to the networking terms I learned in school and through research. As of right now I have a network that has Active Directory installed and in use, print servers, servers that are domain critical, and much more. This is an excellent way to get my feet wet into real world networking and can test my knowledge and test new things as well.

My home network rack

Concept Challenges

Through my beginning career in networking, there was a lot of information that I had to take in order to get the basic concepts down and gain more knowledge that would relate back to it. This was a challenge for me as I sometimes could not grasp some networking concepts right away and would need more time comprehend the concept. The classes I took where very fast paced and would build on past networking terms, so this became an issue right away when I first started taking these classes.

Overcoming the issue was very difficult. I would not only have to read the terminology over and over again, I would test it out on my own time to get it down on or before class would start. This was done either using virtualization software or testing the terms on my own home lab network. Doing this has help me immensely and has helped me overcome a lot of learning curves that these classes would have. All and all, I was successful at it and now have a system if a term isn’t catching on right away.

Places I want to visit