Personal Narrative Essay
My name is Louis Septier, I am now a senior at Old Dominion University, planning on getting my bachelor’s in cybersecurity. Cybersecurity was not always something I was interested about, but in the recent years I have found that the subject was worth getting into. The promise of a challenge and potential connection seemed interesting, furthermore, taking classes here allowed me to choose this path as my future career. A lot happened during this journey, a lot of ups, not too many downs but a couple, all ultimately bringing me to this moment, graduation soon. From the remains of a failed start over to the start of an ambitious future, let me tell you about this bumpy road that has been my life moments before I started college, all the way to where I am standing today, before the finish line.
An important point about my life, some would categorize it as my main selling point, I am not from here. I was born and raised in a small town in Bretagne, all the way across the Atlantic, in France. Due to the military status of my family, I was mostly raised without a father and typically isolated, which opened my eyes to the virtual world, where I found a potential escape from this mellow life I was living. I came to the United States at the age of 13 through a NATO program. I was originally only scheduled to stay for 3 years but ended up obtaining a green card, and here I am 9 years later. Learning to become American was not easy for a 13-year-old. I arrived at a time when language was already acquired, friendships were already established, and the overall etiquette of being a teenager in the US was no stranger to any high schooler. I was dropped off at a school full of kids talking a different language and practicing a completely different culture. My first two years were spent learning English, as well as the many dialects and slang included with it. It was hard to make friends with such a barrier, but I somehow succeeded in that task.
Graduating high school was a difficult task, as my freshman and sophomore years were spent almost in complete silence. I had to retake classes online and work on some extracurricular activities to earn the missing credits. Though I found this American life to be hard, I was up for the challenge and graduating gave me huge ambitions for the future. From here I decided to travel around the country to find a place where I thought the opportunities would flourish. I settled in California, where I would attend a small local college in the city of Oceanside. At that time, I did not have any major to choose from, as my mind was not ready to take that decision yet. Everything went well for my first semester, and I was ready to fully embrace my new life, but a major event came to end all my dreams of a stable adventure. An international pandemic that would shape me and my ideas to become who I am today.
It is safe to say that COVID came out of nowhere and allowed for a spectacular start to the new decade. Like most people in America during that time, I was forced to stay at home, without any hope of getting out any time soon. This global situation stopped my momentum and put me in a certain mental state that I am sure, many people of my age experienced. A deep depression led to a huge gain in weight and a lowering of my self-esteem. Being in that state of mind, I didn’t have any other choice but to think about my future and what I would do when I would finally be allowed to get out of my room. The amount of time spent browsing the internet, playing video games, and helping my parents fix the home network to allow them to work remotely, led me to believe that a career surrounding computers and more specifically the internet would suit me.
At this point back in Virginia, I decided to apply to Old Dominion University, as the campus was close to me and most of the IT programs seemed interesting enough. At the same period, my sister talked about a cyberattack her company was the victim of. I quickly gained a large interest in the subject, and brainstormed many ways her company could fix the problem. Turns out my knowledge wasn’t developed enough and the information I had wasn’t enough to offer any sort of help. This whole episode awakened a huge interest in cybersecurity, as I wanted to be a part of the solution.
Following many research and reflections, I made cybersecurity my major and life career goal. Not only did I wanted to be a part of the solution, but I also wanted to know more about the whole world of cybersecurity. Seeing all the opportunities for exciting and interesting career path. Seeing the endless amount of knowledge, I would be able to learn about. The hardest part about this adventure was choosing the classes, as most of them sounded more interesting each time I would read the title. With Everything I learned and did in this major, I grew more and more eager to finally start my career.
From the beginning, I always thought college was an amazing experience. Without talking about class or academic standards, I have met many amazing people, from all sorts of culture and places around the world. This social experience taught me how to interact in society, specifically with potential professional partners. I believe that this mixture of minds and ideas is a great thing and would allow someone evolving in this environment to thrive and expand their knowledge. The field of cybersecurity is filled with interesting and brilliant minds, which allowed for a very fruitful experience. Whenever I had a problem to resolve which was giving some sort of difficulties, I always found someone close by knowing how to resolve it. Same thing goes the other way, my expertise could sometime help someone else.
The main thing I learned after taking all of these classes in the subject, is that cybersecurity is a very team-oriented field. The best way to resolve an issue is to work together, as a group. I believe that it is a very valuable lesson that everyone should be taught, we are stronger together. As mentioned previously, most of the classes I took put a strong emphasis on group work. The professor would usually give us a problem with minimal explanation and let us, as a group, solve it. This kind of experience is not only a good way for me to learn via trial by fire, but also a good way to make connection, learn from my and others mistake, to come out stronger, all on the same page. In a sense, not one was left behind. All these fun and interesting moments were what made my college experience so memorable. What I lived here I was I am hoping for my future career to be, a challenging but rewarding team experience.