Critical Thinking

As a Cybercrime major, critical thinking is an essential skill that enables me to analyze complex digital threats, assess security vulnerabilities, and make sound, ethical decisions in high-pressure environments. This skill allows me to approach cyber investigations methodically, question assumptions, and evaluate evidence before drawing conclusions. You’ll see this skill demonstrated in my chosen artifacts where I explored real-world issues through an interdisciplinary lens.

Below are examples from my academic work of my critical thinking skills.

The first artifact below is 7 entries of thought provoking cyber questions and my responses from my Cybersecurity, Technology, and Society CYSE 200T course I took in the Fall of 2022.

In this course, students explore how technology is related to cybersecurity from an interdisciplinary orientation. Attention is given to the way that technologically-driven cybersecurity issues are connected to cultural, political, legal, ethical, and business domains.

The second artifact is my research paper I wrote for my Interdisciplinary Theory and Concepts IDS300 course I took Spring of 2025. This writing intensive course is an examination of the history, concepts and application of interdisciplinary study. This course includes an analysis of similarities and differences in academic disciplines and the application of interdisciplinary approaches to a specific topic of study.

My research question was:
“How can psychological profiling be integrated with machine learning techniques to predict and prevent cybercrime activities?”
This paper allowed me to explore how technology and psychology can work together in proactive cyber defense and I’m really proud of how it turned out.

Below is a visual representation of my research topic.

My third artifact is a research paper I wrote in my Introduction to Cybersecurity course (CYSE 300) on identity theft and various ways to mitigate risks. This course provides an overview of the field of cybersecurity. It covers core cybersecurity topics including computer system architectures, critical infrastructures, cyber threats and vulnerabilities, cryptography, information assurance, network security, and risk assessment and management. Students are expected to become familiar with fundamental security concepts, technologies and practices, and develop a foundation for further study in cybersecurity.

In this paper, I explored common methods used by attackers to steal personal information and discussed practical strategies for prevention. This artifact demonstrates my ability to research real-world threats and communicate effective solutions clearly and professionally.