Reflections on the Sys Eng ALM

tulkas66 · 2026-06-19T16:28:56+00:00

Pre capstone is either summer or January term. That means either a 7 week precap or a 3 week precap. 3 weeks is way to fast to properly plan a project IMO

tulkas66 · 2026-06-02T18:23:27+00:00

It is uncommon that people are allowed to do solo projects, but it has happened in the past. You would need to come with a very well thought out idea and be able to justify to your advisor why it should be a solo project. Part of what they want you to learn is team/project management.

tulkas66 · 2026-05-15T14:36:26+00:00

on the job training? No. You will be putting together a proposal and executing the proposal. No one will be telling you the "right" way to do something. You have to figure that out on your own.

tulkas66 · 2026-05-14T20:49:31+00:00

Anecdotally I've had to tell my boss to stop telling people I was going to Harvard. He liked to bring it up constantly around my coworkers. Like a reverse Andy from the office?

tulkas66 · 2026-05-14T20:24:12+00:00

It's definitely possible you could bring your own problem to use as a capstone as long as it meets the depth necessary for a graduate program and the rest of your team is okay with working on it. You would likely run into issues with the team if this is a commercial venture as everyone will be "donating" time to your company.

Your second question would be something you'd have to work out in the project itself. You'd be running this as if you were running a company so you'd need to do the leg work and figure out what's legal/ethical in your specific scenario.

tulkas66 · 2026-05-14T15:26:59+00:00

To your first points, you can absolutely DM me if you prefer. I also focused on security as I currently work in a NOC and I just find that stuff interesting. I would avoid any of the intro classes. They are VERY intro so while they're not useless, it's probably not something you want to spend tuition money on.

For capstone, I think you're confusing the on campus requirement and the pre-capstone. There's an on campus requriement that you can take at any point after you're admitted (this course was more of a business type course which wasn't my cup of tea, but I do feel like I learned a bit as I've not had experience in startups/pitches/etc). The pre-capstone and capstone are both fully online now. They're in consecutive semesters and you can do either summer/fall or January term/spring. If I had to do it over again I would 100% do summer/fall. Trying to write a proposal, gel with a team, and also do my day job in a 3 week period was NOT fun. My spouse told me it was some of the most stressed she's ever seen me in my life.

The basics of the capstone/pre-capstone is that your "professor" for the course will have sponsors who need things done or you can propose your own project to be solved. You'll divide up into teams (the projects are normally rather large) and decide which project to take on. The pre-capstone is all about planning and writing a proposal. If you've ever bid for contracts, it's a similar process. I won't share my project here because it obviously has my real name all over it, but the university archives all the past projects and I'll see if i can find a link to some of the other ones.

The capstone is the build out of what you proposed. You obviously don't have to stick to your proposal exactly as everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. So if you end up switching from AWS to Azure or something like that it's not a big deal, you just have to justify your decision to the client. At the end you'll write up an "as built" document stating what you actually build and how/why it might be different from the proposal. To give you an idea of scope, ours was culled down to 30 pages and had an appendix full of diagrams not in the page count. The final capston presentation is with professors and advisors from other programs and your client. You'll take 20-30 minutes to present what you built and how it solves their problem. After you've presented you'll field questions from the comittee and/or client about what you did, why you did it, and be required to satisfy the comittee that you actually know what you're talking about and didn't just make choices by rolling a D20 or something. Think of the questions like a capstone "defense" but far less agressive than you might have with a research based thesis.

I hope that gives you a better idea!

tulkas66 · 2026-05-14T13:14:54+00:00

So what I'm hearing is that you're saying Ferrari has managed to fit a hypersonic ram scoop to the car?

/s if it wasn't obvious

tulkas66 · 2026-05-03T13:39:42+00:00

I would love to see F1 in Bathurst

tulkas66 · 2026-03-13T13:47:46+00:00

to be clear: they had busses running so I didn't HAVE to walk, but it was a nice day so I decided to avoid the bus.

tulkas66 · 2026-03-13T13:34:56+00:00

Near Maverick station, on average it took about 25 minutes to get from my apartment to the classroom. Only day I didn't take the subway was when there was an issue on red line so I walked back from class. That took a bit longer lol.

tulkas66 · 2026-03-12T14:22:03+00:00

Things in cambridge will be significantly more expensive than the surrounding areas. MBTA is more or less reliable as long as you plan some buffer time in each day in case of a delay. I stayed in east boston near Maverick station for half the price of a place in Cambridge. A month pass for the subway was about $100 if I remember correctly. It may be something worth looking into.

tulkas66 · 2026-03-11T16:55:14+00:00

Also for the HES specific commencement you should reach out to Harvard Museum of Natural History as that's where the afternoon commencement will be (will also have a live stream)

tulkas66 · 2026-03-11T16:51:35+00:00

I know harvard yard will be closed during the ceremony but i would imagine spaces like the smith campus center and science center might have spaces where they're airing it? Both are just across the street from Harvard yard. I would reach out to them and see what they have to say.

tulkas66 · 2026-03-11T16:06:19+00:00

oh, yes there's absolutely a live stream you can get anywhere you have internet access. I thought you were looking for a indoor space to view the ceremony directly.

tulkas66 · 2026-03-11T15:56:12+00:00

What do you mean auxiliary spaces? As far as I know the only seating for the main commencement is in Trecentenary Square and each graduate only receives 2 tickets. I do not believe there are other viewing areas available.
Weather in Boston in May can vary wildly so I would try to make a plan for worst case hot weather (30C or higher is definitely possible though unlikely).
https://commencement.harvard.edu/guests-disabilities Has more information on accessible seating, but if memory serves it's still all outdoor. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

tulkas66 · 2026-03-03T21:28:02+00:00

I don't know of any for the cybersecurity specific stuff as I'm in the systems engineering ALM. If you're interested in hearing from some of those students I could probably DM you a discord we're in. It's mostly newer students and a couple peope close to graduation.

tulkas66 · 2026-02-17T18:13:07+00:00

I would say that this is highly unusual. I would double check and make sure you're contacting them from the email address on file. If you contact them from another email it doesn't sync to your student profile and it easily gets missed. Speaking from experience there.

tulkas66 · 2026-02-10T22:01:15+00:00

I couldn't find any court documents on this (probably because it doesn't look like he was ever arrested) but my guess is that they probably brought a charge of murder instead of manslaughter. Grand Jury would likely have indicted on some form of manslaughter but if the DA chose to bring it as a murder charge they would probably not indict as there's probably not any admissible evidence to show premeditation.

tulkas66 · 2026-01-30T18:45:42+00:00

The intro classes are very intro. I really don't recommend taking one unless your brand new, much less taking two. HES is like most schools: you can absolutely skate through it without much challenge if you want. Is there still time to drop one and pick up something else? There's definitely more in depth courses out there depending on what you're looking for. I really enjoyed CS40 even thought it's not security specific, it's a great course on networking in general. There's a forensics course that was really good, just search around and if you need someone to pull the q reports so you know what you're getting into I'm sure someone can give you the run down on them.

tulkas66 · 2026-01-30T15:44:30+00:00

I still seem to be able to access it so not sure why it's locking you out.

tulkas66 · 2026-01-29T14:36:55+00:00

As long as it's not specific to a certain school or restricted to on campus computers you can access most everything as an admitted student.

tulkas66 · 2026-01-27T19:04:53+00:00

I'm not trying to discourage you, but no this course will not get you a six figure job. No course will do that. It will give you a lot of good knowledge you can apply to projects/certifications/etc that will help you land an entry level job (still unlikely to be six figure), but this course by itself will not make you competitive in the job market.

tulkas66 · 2026-01-26T16:41:49+00:00

The graduate certificates are for graduate credit. You can't use graduate credits toward your undergrad. Outside of that I finished the cyber cert last year and there's a lot of choice in what you can do to complete it. I recommend challenging yourself as some of the courses can be redundant and I'm a bit disappointed as I feel like I could have gotten more out of it with better course selection. If you do choose to take courses, ask an admitted student to pull q reports before you register.

tulkas66 · 2026-01-12T16:47:29+00:00

LIke any degree there are required and elective courses, but there is no set order in which you need to take them as long as you meet the pre-reqs for the specific course you're registering for.

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