When I first set foot on Old Dominion University’s campus, clutching a backpack that weighed about as much as my doubts, I wasn’t just walking into a new chapter — I was kicking open a door that no one in my family had ever opened before. I was the first to go to college. No pressure, right?

In my family, higher education was more myth than milestone. We knew about college from TV shows — usually the ones with dramatic breakups and suspiciously clean dorm rooms. Real life, I quickly learned, was a lot less glamorous. My journey through ODU’s cybersecurity program would be marked by equal parts ambition, chaos, caffeine, and an endless tug-of-war between responsibility and the gravitational pull of social life.

Launch Sequence Initiated

At first, I thought college life would be like a well-designed network: organized, secure, predictable. I was wrong — very wrong.

Cybersecurity 101 (also known officially as IT 315: Introduction to Networking and Security under Professor Kalburgi) hit me like a rogue packet storm. I found myself hunched over case analyses at midnight, designing a wired network for Maury High School. It felt oddly poetic: while I was building hypothetical networks for others, I was also trying to build a real one for myself — a bridge between my family’s working-class history and the tech-driven future I dreamed about.

But dreams don’t pay the rent. Neither do inspirational quotes. So, while trying to memorize the OSI model, I also juggled two, sometimes three jobs. Warehouse Worker. Food Delivery Driver. Arena Operations Supervisor. My Google Calendar looked like the blueprint for a DoS attack — every hour saturated, nothing left open. Sleep became a rare and precious resource, like zero-day vulnerabilities.

Some nights, I would finish a late shift, crack open my laptop in the parking lot, and crank out an assignment with fast-food napkins as my mousepad. That’s the unfiltered side of “chasing your dreams” they don’t put on motivational posters.

Defending Against Distractions

If balancing work and school wasn’t hard enough, there was another adversary I had to defend against: the social scene.

ODU had no shortage of distractions. There were parties that seemed to happen on every day ending in “y,” beach trips just a group text away, and spontaneous “study sessions” that suspiciously lacked any actual studying. I swear at one point, I heard someone say, “Come on, networking is important!” — conveniently leaving out the part where they meant “networking over five-dollar margaritas.”

The irony of studying cybersecurity while trying to defend myself from FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) was not lost on me. There were times I stumbled. A “quick hangout” would turn into a late night. A “one-hour Netflix break” would become a six-episode binge. Each slip cost me valuable time and brought a wave of guilt bigger than any data breach notification.

Eventually, I realized that just like securing a network, securing my own focus required layers: setting up boundaries, applying patches (aka new habits), and sometimes just straight-up isolating myself from known vulnerabilities (looking at you, Thursday night happy hours).

Firewall Up, Mindset Locked

What kept me going wasn’t just stubbornness — it was falling in love with cybersecurity itself.

When I took CYSE 450: Ethical Hacking and Penetration with Professor Alam, the game changed. I wasn’t just studying for grades anymore. I was digging into active reconnaissance labs, malware analysis challenges, and steganography puzzles that felt like unlocking the secret levels of my own potential.

The moment I successfully performed my first SQL Injection lab was like the nerd version of scoring the winning touchdown. Alone in my room, I literally did a tiny fist pump. (And yes, my cat judged me.)

Later, in CYSE 406: Cyber Law with Professor Klena, writing a memorandum for the Governor of Virginia opened my eyes to the real-world impact of what we protect in cybersecurity — not just systems, but people’s privacy, trust, and lives. I wasn’t just learning skills; I was becoming a protector. The weight of that responsibility was humbling, but it also lit a fire under me that no amount of exhaustion could put out.

Meanwhile, in CYSE 425: Cyber Strategy and Policy with Professor Duvall, reviewing GDPR implementation made me realize that policy and practice are two sides of the same security coin. I wasn’t just some IT worker-in-training — I was part of a generation that could shape the future of digital ethics and strategy.

The Hardest Hack: Self-Doubt

Even with all these victories, the hardest battle I fought wasn’t against a cryptographic algorithm or a malware sample. It was against my own self-doubt.

When you’re the first in your family to step into unfamiliar territory, imposter syndrome isn’t just a buzzword. It’s a persistent echo in the back of your mind: “Do you really belong here?”

I lost count of the times I questioned myself — while pulling all-nighters, while failing a quiz, while choosing between groceries and textbooks. There were moments I wanted to throw in the towel and retreat into something easier, something familiar.

But every time, something pulled me back: the image of my parents’ pride when I told them I was pursuing cybersecurity. The way my little cousins started saying, “I want to be like you!” The realization that maybe the point wasn’t to be perfect — it was to keep showing up, firewall up, ready to defend my dreams from anything that tried to breach them.

System Status: Fully Operational

As I near graduation, the words “first college graduate” don’t feel like a finish line — they feel like a launchpad. I’m entering a cybersecurity field that is as unpredictable as it is vital, but I’m walking into it stronger, sharper, and yes, still slightly fueled by coffee.

Looking back, the late-night shifts, the missed parties, the uphill battles against exhaustion and doubt — they weren’t glitches in the system. They were the training grounds. They taught me resilience, focus, and the ability to patch my weaknesses faster than any vulnerability scanner could.

And honestly? They gave me some hilarious stories along the way — like the time I configured a VLAN setup on my birthday while my friends celebrated next door, sending me cake through the window like I was in quarantine.

I’m proud of the networks I designed, the systems I secured, and most of all, the firewall I built inside myself: strong enough to withstand failure, flexible enough to adapt, and resilient enough to keep moving forward.

Because in the end, being first didn’t just mean reaching a milestone for my family.
It meant proving to myself that no matter how tough the code, how messy the wiring, or how persistent the distractions — I could secure a future worth fighting for.