Arica Willis

April 18, 2025

Reflection Paper #3

During the final 50 hours of my internship, my team and I successfully brought together all of our work to present our completed game recommendation app. This capstone phase showcased the full scope of what we had accomplished across cybersecurity, software engineering, and backend development.

As a cybersecurity engineer turned software engineer, I played a key role in securing and developing our application. Earlier in the internship, I contributed to designing a network security plan and implementing protections for our database, including encryption protocols, role-based access control (RBAC), and authentication mechanisms to safeguard sensitive user data. 

We also ensured our architecture followed best practices by integrating intrusion detection systems, segmenting the network, and outlining an incident response plan.In the second phase, our team migrated our systems into PostgreSQL, and I worked hands-on with integrating and securing the database within our backend infrastructure. Around the same time, we dove into learning and building APIs with Java, and my quick grasp of backend logic and secure coding allowed me to transition naturally into a software engineering role. I contributed to API design, connected endpoints to our database, and ensured data was handled safely and efficiently throughout the app.

By the final week, we had a fully functional and secure game recommendation application that we were proud to present. I helped demo the API functionality, explained the security measures we implemented, and contributed to walking through our backend architecture. The presentation was not only a testament to the technical skills I gained—from cybersecurity frameworks and risk assessment to API development and Java coding—but also to my growth in collaboration, problem-solving, and adaptability.

This internship was a transformative experience that allowed me to merge my passion for cybersecurity with my growing skills in software engineering, and it further fueled my desire to keep building secure, efficient systems that make an impact.