I attended COVA CCI’s Cybercon 2023 and really enjoyed the group presentation Thursday morning titled “CCI Experiential Learning Programs”. This presentation led by CCI’s Sarah Hayes was about helping students ensure they have jobs lined up for after graduating by partnering with cybersecurity companies to have students take on apprenticeships rather than internships to help them get ahead on job experience. This provides students with better training opportunities in school and a chance to receive OJT from mentors in these companies. This can help the cybersecurity industry because students who can take on these programs will be leaving college better trained than ever before. As someone who wasn’t super interested in these programs due to starting their degree with military experience in the cybersecurity field, this opened up my eyes on ways to better network and be prepared for a job in this field post graduation.