Reflection

My ODU experience has been very pleasant. I had some very good professors who helped me find internships and develop as a person. They answered all my questions and helped me understand complex topics. The cybersecurity program is definitely a good start, but it needs more work. Some small changes, such as being able to work with vendor tools like Splunk, Tenable, and more, would greatly improve the program, but overall, it is a great way to go from nothing to competent. I believe that my most valuable skills came from the technical classes. They allowed me to tinker with the concepts and apply them to real-world situations. The disciplines came from information security, film, and programming. Film helped me analyze information more effectively in a visual context.

My most valuable learning experiences came from the many extra learning opportunities at ODU. I completed multiple internships and experiential learning classes, participated in multiple CTF events, and engaged in experiential learning.  These lead me to solve complex problems. I had to think critically about a diverse set of problems in these extra learning opportunities.

I ran into several obstacles while completing these learning experiences. One was time management because I was taking 15 credit hours while completing these extra learning opportunities. Making sure I had enough time to complete my coursework, and then completing the extra work from the extra learning opportunities. I solved this issue by blocking out time on my calendar. This allowed me to see how much time I had left for the day and which goals I had. Another obstacle was solving a complex problem with limited time and understanding. Some of my projects required programming languages I was not very familiar with, and I could only work with them for 4 hours a week. Making it hard to grasp all the concepts I needed to apply. To address this issue, I spend some of my free time learning to use the language and optimizing it.

Then my previous experiences allowed me to quickly understand the new concepts I was learning and how to apply them. If I were having trouble, I would ask the professor for help. This allowed me to quickly understand and then apply what I was learning in class to the real world and vice versa. Each class and internship was a building block, allowing me to apply my knowledge to increasingly complex tasks.

IDS 493 is a course that is designed to help you set up an e-portfolio. An e-portfolio is a website that has all your career information and classes. Think of LinkedIn, but specifically for you.  The most interesting concept was understanding how to design an e-portfolio. It seems easy in theory, but after a few weeks, I realized that you need to understand how people think.  What information would a potential employer need, and how would you present the information?

I think I organized my website pretty well. I spent the most time organizing the information so it flowed naturally and told my story. It took me a few attempts and asking myself what an employer would need to see in my e-portfolio. Once I realized how people scan information, I realized what is actually important. I was able to improve my website. However, you have to look at the bigger picture.

I ran into multiple issues when creating my website. First, I ran into the issue with my navbar. What is important for an employer to know? It took three different integrations to find one that worked with my story. Once I did that, I ran into an issue with my experience. How do I showcase my experience with different technologies, and what should I highlight first? This took a few different iterations, but after some time and working with different people, I found a possible solution that I liked.

I think I improved my formatting. WordPress was a little hard to get images into the spot I wanted. I had to sacrifice image positioning to make it work in time. I think with a bit more time, I could figure out what the issue was, but the current solution works. Additionally, if I had a better understanding of WordPress, I could improve the website’s speed, thereby boosting SEO. Then my previous courses gave me the experience I needed to complete my e-portfolio. As I completed different courses, I learned how to apply concepts such as time management and work-life balance. These concepts helped me secure internships. Those experiences helped me fill out my experience page with internships that apply to my career.

To bring everything together, the skills I learned at ODU will help me secure a full-time cybersecurity position. From technical to soft skills, ODU has greatly improved my chances of landing a full-time position through its coursework and initiatives. I used computer science, social sciences, psychology, and law during my time at ODU. Each one of these disciplines helped me become more well-rounded and find opportunities such as COVA CCI. COVA CCI helped me secure my current internship, which could become a full-time position in the federal space. I used computer science, social sciences, and psychology almost daily because of my coursework. It is very important to be an interdisciplinary thinker in my field because understanding computers is just one aspect of cybersecurity. You need to understand how people think and will react to different types of threats so they can report them effectively. Then, diverse backgrounds can improve cybersecurity by having unique ideas or experiences. My next step is to get a full-time position with GuidePoint Security in the federal space. My current internship is with them, and there are talks of me getting an offer.