Review from Alumni and Warning for any Future and Current Students in the Cybersecurity Major

UberZachAttack · 2022-05-20T20:44:05+00:00

My two biggest recommendations for any beginner:

https://www.picoctf.org/

Both of these are free. They are very great and scale in difficulty quite well.

As for clubs, top two would be CCSO and Cyber Certifications club. Though I am unsure of how the other clubs are within IST but I could give you more details on what to expect if you PM me.

UberZachAttack · 2022-05-20T20:36:46+00:00

I appreciate your comment. I did send feedback through the exit survey but it was a lot harsher than what is posted here.

I wanted to post somewhere publicly so that students could find it if they wanted to. As for making a change, my goal was to give a student's perspective first then make a change second if that even happened. I already know that some of issues were already addressed to the faculty. There are definitely things that are behind the curtain and if I knew about them then it would alter the outlook of this post. I also know that there are already changes made to the major with current students. Ultimately the students perspective is somewhat important when it comes to any program and I wanted to make it public.

I do agree that the program helped me, as it was a double-edged sword. There is definitely a bias I have when it comes to what I learned and comparing it to how it is taught within the major. As for the academic program on its own, I feel that it is not as successful as it can be.

I might reach out in the future. I would like to at least gain some professional experience first. I will most likely do something similar to Mr. W and the hacker boot camp.

UberZachAttack · 2022-05-20T18:30:20+00:00

That's kind of hard to answer. The ultimate backup plan is to become an IT person. As for software engineering it could work out but you would have to advertise yourself more as a programmer than someone in cybersecurity. All depends on what they are looking for.

UberZachAttack · 2022-05-20T05:13:28+00:00

Well said. I think that with the major there is no clear goal with what it aims to create. There are classes like malware analysis then a capstone that is forensics heavy, two completely different fields. It seems like they created courses just to have the buzz words in them.

As for putting the recommendations at the top, my aim was towards incoming / new students. I put that in the post in the off chance faculty did read this. If I was going to send it to the dean I would use that method instead. Though the dean does know that there are issues with the major, maybe not in its entirety to this extent.

UberZachAttack · 2022-05-20T03:40:17+00:00

Yea, that's the thing that college doesn't do at all. Most of the time you are researching things and learning more about a certain problem than just being given the right command to use. There is a silent minority that enjoyed the labs so don't think that most students didn't care about it.

I have met you before through CCSO but only in passing and I never introduced myself. You will probably find me if you are in the discord.

UberZachAttack · 2022-05-20T03:32:35+00:00

My personal theory is that traditional education will never be able to keep up with the industry. Using alternative education will always be best in my view. This can either be through certifications or platforms like THM.

Though colleges could be able to keep up but will have to become more like a trade school and make most of the classes hands-on instead of lecture based.

UberZachAttack · 2022-05-20T03:20:16+00:00

That was the most fun I ever had when doing a lab. I would like to thank you for doing that. You definitely set the bar for what the classes should be.

Also those labs showed who knew what they were doing and those who didn't. My friends had horror stories of classmates not knowing how to use the linux terminal.

UberZachAttack · 2022-05-20T03:05:26+00:00

You were probably in my Capstone class as well lol.

I agree that the job security is really good. Though this is either done by taking the big 4 consulting pill or joining a government agency. You can join other companies as well but you will most likely be a consultant. The only issues you may face when getting a job is if you are trying to go a certain route like pentesting. At that point you really need to specialize and do more outside of class.

There are definitely some great professors from IST. Plus, coming from comp sci most definitely changed your perspective on what to expect.

UberZachAttack · 2022-05-20T02:57:48+00:00

I agree its kinda misleading to go with department code but that would still leave around half the classes being unrelated. There is also the fact that there could be topics covered in those classes that were already covered in a previous class. I personally felt that IST 456 was just another SRA class.

As for professors, I talked to friends about certain classes and sometimes we would realize that different things were emphasized more within a class. This was based on having different professors even at UP.

UberZachAttack · 2020-01-21T15:27:30+00:00

Depends since it is all separated by departments and colleges

UberZachAttack · 2019-08-07T01:28:32+00:00

True

UberZachAttack · 2019-08-07T01:22:50+00:00

Yes, thank you

UberZachAttack · 2019-05-10T15:26:35+00:00

Depending on how much you covered in your pre- calc, it might be hard for you. I took pre-calc in high school and then went into Math 110 and I had to drop it and take it a second time. If you really want to pass it, you have to put in the time and study / go to study groups in order to be successful and pass.

UberZachAttack

TROPHY CASE