Introduction

• My experience within the ODU Cybersecurity program has been a journey about learning more about the world of technology and myself. I’ve been introduced to many concepts and I have had to push myself to learn and engage with the level of academic rigor that is the Cybersecurity program.
• The skills that I most value from my studies at Old Dominion University are critical thinking skills and the ability to independently learn new concepts and material. I also value the programming skills that I have learned from the Computer science curriculum that I participated in to obtain my minor in computer science, as well as the cybersecurity skills like command line and the various cybersecurity tools I have been introduced to.

Program Reflection

• The most valuable learning experiences from my time at ODU are those where I made mistakes and did not initially fully understand the subject. Making mistakes in programming or labs led to the most growth and development in my ability to think and learn. For example, a large coding project that does not work quite right. The tedious nature of troubleshooting and finding the issues with the code reinforces what I did wrong so that I don’t make that mistake in the future.
• The biggest obstacle during my learning experience was time management. Dividing the amount of time I spent studying equally between all of my classes while being employed proved to be difficult. To help combat this issue, I tried to stick to a consistent schedule that accounted for all of the different things going on in my life.
• Previous courses in ODU helped me to complete the program by building upon one another. Learning the basics of Linux and command line helps me during my cybersecurity labs that include Linux. My introduction to programming classes during my freshman year help me to create a coding project that includes cybersecurity concepts in my junior year.

IDS 493 Reflection

• IDS 493 is the summary of your collegiate academic career to present towards the world to show what you have accomplished at ODU
• The most valuable concepts I have learned during IDS 493 are different ways to present myself towards strangers.
• I think that I included a lot of material and proof from my different classes. I am most proud of the amount of artifacts I was able to collect.
• The most challenging part of IDS 493 was deciding what to put in my e-portfolio. I have taken a lot of classes and not all of them are relevant to what I want to present even though I am proud of the work I have done in those other classes. I addressed this issue by looking through my class history to see where my best work was and how relevant it is to my career.
• With more time, I could improve how personal the portfolio is.
• Previous courses helped me to complete this course by giving me material to put in my e-portfolio

Conclusion

• Interdisciplinary methods and theories were important to my understanding of my coursework because my courses were rarely independent of only one discipline. There has been philosophy, criminology, mathematics, and more within my courses even though I am majoring in cybersecurity.
• It is important to be an interdisciplinary thinker in my field of study because there is a large amount of overlap between a lot of different disciplines and cybersecurity. Learning about different disciplines and how they think and process information will also help in learning about different subjects.