Brianne Dunn

5/9/2026

Final Refection

Introduction

Throughout my time at Old Dominion, I’ve had an internship that has spanned nearly a year long, in that time I have also taken many technical classes as well as peripheral classes that the curriculum requires. Together, these helped me build not only the expertise for my field, but also the hard and soft skills that would be required for me to stand out in this field. Building my portfolio, I wanted to focus on these aspects of the last two years of my time with ODU. My major is Cybersecurity and requires a heavy number of hard skills such as Linux, Programming experience, as well as Network Analysis. My desired role is working as a Cyber Analyst, which would require analyzing threats and communicating with other departments to mitigate them. It is an ever growing field and it has been stated that it’s importance defending against cyber risks were likely to surpass terrorism to national security (Vogel, 2016 )

Management Skills

Internship Experience

For one of my artifacts, I wanted to focus on my time under the Northeastern University internship that I spent with ODU peers. Our research primarily focused on the presence of “weird machines”. Which was the presence of strange emergent behavior arising from a systems intended design, that could then be altered and manipulated to do harm. Now, outside of my portfolio, I this works extremely well as a talking piece to my hard skills with using python. However, I thought this fit excellently as an artifact for my management skills, as I learned a lot about leadership in this role from my supervisors, lessons that I would like to pass on to other companies that I work with. There are multiple times where I had imposter syndrome during this opportunity, that I was able to fight through thanks to the support of my leadership, leadership that I carried on in my other group projects, and that I intend to carry with myself on a new job.

Collaborative Experience

Not only did I learn much about leadership, but I also spent quite a lot of time working collaboratively with my peers to meet deadlines. Between working on projects together, sending the ball back and forth between each other on problem solving whenever one of us was stuck on a block of programming, the boat sailed smoothly for a bunch of inexperienced sailors. Unfortunately, as an online Old Dominion student I didn’t have very many opportunities to do collaborative projects, but discussion boards where we would offer feedback to one another, I did enjoy and take seriously. (Reading point)

Azure

                Lastly, for what I have under management, I would speak about my previous work experience before I made the decision to go back to school and pursue my bachelor’s degree. I used to work as a System’s Administrator and even was given the reigns over a lot of the cybersecurity tools and SIEMs, as I showed an interest in the subject and would often delve myself into it. This is important because in Azure and Active Directory, I had to manage multiple departments of users, keeping track of their permissions and licenses, as well as reaching out to them whenever I needed to discuss some strange activity on their account. While I wasn’t the manager of my department for IT, the role I filled as an administrator felt managerial in feeling, and while small I think it’s a transferable skill to work a higher role in my said department.

                Technical Skills

        Linux experience

                Of course, what would working in technical field like cybersecurity be without speaking towards some of my hard skills as well. In this class I’ve come to realize that while these hard skills are the stones that build the structure, the soft skills are the mortar that sticks them together, allowing you to continue building to new heights. Thankfully throughout my time at Old Dominion University, I’ve had to take several classes on Linux, on the basics of its functions, exploiting Linux systems, all the way to using Linux to exploit other operating systems. In all these classes we had to document our work with images, to which we would further go into detail sometimes about why we got the result that we did. I’ve chosen to use some of these as proof of my work, but not in overwhelming abundance, as I’d just like to give a hint of my experience in Linux, rather than have the section read like just one of my assignments.

                I’d also like to speak on the various papers that I’ve written related to Cyber Defense. Many of my cyber security classes not only dealt with the programming and networking side of things but it also dealt with a lot of the ethics surrounding Cybersecurity. I’ve written countless papers on AI, Ethical behavior in the real-world vs the digital, and I think this theoretical approach to subjects learned would benefit me greatly as someone able to think outside of the box when it came to thinking of exploits and the psychology behind it. We’ve also done numerous case studies on federal regulations and policy surrounding Cybersecurity, one of mine being passive surveillance on other countries, permitted by PPD-20. We’ve also done technical studies on operating systems and our opinions on why they have such high exploitability versus their counterparts. Not only knowing how to perform in these subjects but also have an open and ongoing discussion about them I believe matters when considering the possibilities of what is not immediately in front of us. I think this not only shows depth, but also the willingness to keep up with subjects in the field. “This is a business that is very technology oriented, and full of people…who want to one-up you. So if you can’t kind of deal with that, it’s going to be hard for you to be an effective advocate because people will kind of eat you up unless you’re pretty convincing”.  (Haney & Lutters, 2017)

                TryHackMe & Capture The Flags

                In my spare time I also do work in TryHackMe, a recreational platform where users can learn more about cybersecurity but also spend time improving their already existing skills with CaptureTheFlag challenges. On this page I’d like to present my results with the lessons that I’ve completed on the platform, while also taking the time to showcase some of my work with the CaptureTheFlags. It’d be a good moment to showcase my interest in the field outside of work, and if nothing else it could be a good talking point with anyone in my department who might be doing the same, perhaps even if someone just simply wanted to learn more about them.

Experience

                Networking Home labs

                For Networking, I wanted to showcase a lot of my hands on experience with functioning networks. As cybersecurity is essentially all networking, it’s wrapped around protecting the infrastructure of the company or home network, and it is often said that it’s difficult to protect something you don’t understand. I’ve done a lot of home networking projects using Packet Tracer. It’s a practice tool often used for those studying for the CCNA, a very well-respected IT certification for Cisco Systems, and the reason I started doing it myself. I’ve of course used it in some of my networking classes at Old Dominion as well, so this makes for a hard skill that I’ve got much practice in (here)

            Research Papers

Not only did we do labs within Linux, but it was in several generations of Windows machines as well. We worked in several software platforms that are in demand in the field including network analysis tools like Wireshark, and even widely used firewall platforms like pfSense. While we didn’t spend an incredibly deep amount of time on these platforms, not like our Linux dedicated classes, they were just enough to build a foundation for all of us to further our knowledge in, or at the very least have familiarity with them should the topic ever come up within an interview.

Certificates and Degree

Lastly would be my proven certificates, and I would likely also mention my bachelors in Cybersecurity here as well. I have a valid certification currently in Security+, which is also required in many companies in the field of Cybersecurity. It is foundational to everything that we do, and it would be good to establish that I have that foundation. It would immediately open up further discussions in an interview environment, whether I’d planned on getting anymore certifications, what topics I felt I might have struggled on, etc. I got the idea to include this after our assignment that had us look at various job listings on LinkedIn, a lot of the recurring hard skills mentioned were a required Security+ certification.

Conclusion

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t choose Old Dominion completely because of affordability, but I came to be very pleasantly surprised with how thorough their program is, the depth of their subjects, and the abundance of opportunity that they allow for their students to come into contact with. I think it’s important to have knowledge of several disciplines in your field because it allows you to see from perspectives that you might not have considered. For that reason, I’m glad that I had to take classes such as this one, as speaking on portfolios helped me gain helpful insight not only into the job market, but also how I would like to be perceived within my field, giving me the chance to give advice to anyone just starting my journey. Having to understand ethics behind my otherwise technical degree was valuable as well, as it helped me understand the bigger picture of what I’m achieving in my field. In an article about the human aspects needed in cybersecurity, it was stated that “Future professionals need to have several important competences to be able to use their knowledge in a collaborative and value-adding way.”  (Pogatsnik, 2023)

Sources Cited

Vogel, R. (2016). Closing the cybersecurity skills gap. Salus Journal, 4(2), 32–42. https://doi.org/10.3316/informit.093144667545339

Pogatsnik, M., & colleagues. (2023). A systematic review of human aspects in Industry 4.0 and 5.0: Cybersecurity awareness and soft skills. In 2023 IEEE International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management (IEEM). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/IEEM58616.2023.10406621

Haney, J., & Lutters, W. (2017). Skills and characteristics of successful cybersecurity advocates. In Proceedings of the Thirteenth Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security (SOUPS 2017). USENIX Association. https://www.usenix.org/conference/soups2017/workshop-program/wsiw2017/haney

Atkinson, R. D. (2008). Measuring up. Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. https://www2.itif.org/2008measuringup.pdf

Berkowitz, B. D., & Goodman, A. E. (2013). Strategic intelligence for American national security. Princeton University Press.