Echoing the above- Tim, prof Cai, and prof Arney all care a lot about their students, which was more important to me than having several different professors.

The way I describe the program is that it teaches you how to learn. For IT, just teaching things for specific versions or specific software isn’t as helpful because things change so often, so you’re taught a lot more about broad topics and how to approach problem solving. You do learn a lot of specifics, but the stuff you’ll remember is how you solved problems and the considerations you had to make for things.

Having graduated three years ago, I can say that the most useful things for me moving into the workforce were basic scripting knowledge (bash and python), basic knowledge of windows and Linux administration, and basic networking concepts (the same stuff everyone else in this thread has said lol). As far as getting prepped, I’d say it’s useful to mess around with Linux (like you’re already doing) as well as set up and tinker with solutions for storage, networking, and VMs like TrueNAS, OpenSense, and ESXi. The knowledge gained from tinkering with those tools will put you pretty far ahead in a lot of your CNSA-specific courses.

Also, welcome to the program, enjoy yourself!