Reflection Essay (IDS 493)

The process of building my ePortfolio gave me the opportunity to reflect critically on my growth across three areas: Cybersecurity Operations, Technical Communication, and Professionalism. Each of these skills has been shaped by the interdisciplinary nature of my degree program at Old Dominion University, combining technical knowledge, critical thinking, and real-world application. The ePortfolio itself became more than a simple collection of assignments; it served as a structured demonstration of my progression, similar to what Fordes (n.d.) describes as an evolving showcase of academic and professional identity. Reflection played a critical role in this process, not just reviewing what I had done, but thinking about how my experiences shaped my ability to adapt, learn, and lead moving forward (Reed & Koliba, 2001).

This reflection essay illustrates how selected artifacts—gathered from coursework, military service, and my SkillBridge internship—demonstrate these competencies and support my readiness for a cybersecurity leadership role. It connects specific academic theories, technical frameworks, and personal lessons to my career development, showing how interdisciplinary education prepared me for the complexity of the cybersecurity field.

My understanding of cybersecurity operations matured through a combination of military experience and academic inquiry. One of the most important artifacts illustrating this growth is my research paper, Windows Vulnerabilities and Security Concerns, completed for CYSE 280: Windows System Management and Security (Gladden, 2023). This assignment served as a critical bridge between real-world exposure and theoretical mastery. Prior to my academic coursework, I operated within secure environments during my time at Navy Cyber Warfare Development Group (NCWDG), where recognizing and mitigating vulnerabilities in classified networks was a daily function. However, writing this paper forced me to step back and systematically deconstruct the Windows operating system from a forensic and attacker-centric perspective, a major shift from my operational mindset.

The most difficult aspect of creating this artifact was managing the competing demands of my military work schedule and my academic obligations. Timing, shifting priorities, and stress were constant factors. Balancing college assignments with operational duties was extremely challenging, especially when both entered periods of intense activity. Sometimes I had the luxury of dedicated time for deep work, but other periods were overwhelming. Reflection became critical to navigating these pressures, forcing me to assess not just what tasks needed completion, but how my thinking needed to adjust to new learning environments (Reed & Koliba, 2001). I often found myself needing to quickly adapt my style, tone, and technical depth based on my audience. When communicating at NCWDG, I could stay extremely technical and direct, operating with a “full-go” mindset geared toward cybersecurity specialists. However, when writing for an academic setting, particularly for university instructors and civilian professionals, I had to change my tone to be more explanatory, structured, and accessible.

During the paper’s creation, a detailed investigation into nuanced Windows features like Alternate Data Streams (ADS), Prefetch files, and Shellbags pushed me to formalize my knowledge through scholarly research. These were not abstract concepts for me; they were artifacts I had encountered during real-world incident response work. However, the academic requirement to articulate their purpose, vulnerabilities, and forensic implications required a deeper, evidence-based approach. Academic sources, such as Microsoft’s official documentation (Microsoft, 2022) and forensic analysis from practitioners like Hamann (2019), supported this deep dive and expanded my ability to speak about these features with technical precision. One particular insight involved understanding how forensic artifacts like Shellbags and Prefetch files can reveal user behavior patterns, which directly connects to insider threat detection and breach investigations (SANS Institute, 2021). This realization showed me that effective cybersecurity operations are not just about system hardening; they must incorporate forensic readiness and behavioral analytics.

I also leveraged an automotive metaphor in the paper—equating end-users to drivers, analysts to mechanics, and system developers to engineers—to bridge the gap for a non-technical audience. That communication technique, developed over years of explaining cyber operations to Navy mission planners, reaffirmed that technical expertise must always be adaptable to its audience.

Reflecting on the experience, if I were to approach a similar project again, I would incorporate live case studies or actual breach reports to better connect theory with contemporary industry challenges. Authentic learning occurred when I realized that cybersecurity leadership requires adaptability across multiple landscapes—technical operations, academic rigor, and human communication. This paper ultimately reshaped how I view cybersecurity operations today: a discipline where psychological, organizational, regulatory, and technical elements must all be considered together (NIST, 2020). This artifact directly contributed to my career readiness, particularly as I transitioned into security engineering leadership roles focused on both technical defense and forensic response.

Technical communication emerged as a cornerstone of my professional development, especially as I transitioned out of the military’s formal, acronym-heavy parlance into the challenge of corporate and academic environments. One of the most significant artifacts of this transition is my professional resume. At first glance, a resume may not seem like an advanced technical document, yet the process of building one taught me important lessons about how technical information must be translated to reach different audiences.

The hardest part of crafting my resume was how deeply ingrained my military thinking was in describing my work. I was caught in a form of circular logic: whenever I tried to explain what I did, I reverted to mission-first jargon or technical acronyms. My first drafts expressed effort and commitment, but not effect. In the military, results were often assumed rather than explicitly tracked. Employers in the private sector, however, expect a clear account of what you did, why it mattered, and what outcomes you delivered (NIST, 2020).

Frustration defined much of this early process. I was frustrated with myself that I didn’t instinctively know how to frame my experience, and I was anxious that if I failed to communicate my value properly, the technical skills I had worked so hard to build would be overlooked. Writing the resume felt like an existential test: either I adapted my communication style, or I risked falling short during my career transition.

Feedback from ODU career services, veteran mentors, and instructors was crucial in helping me shift my approach. Rather than presenting a list of duties, I had to organize my experience around transferable skills, competencies, and measurable outcomes. Studies like Wright and Domagalski’s (1999) work on resume effectiveness confirmed that employers favor resumes that emphasize accomplishments, results, and leadership potential, rather than simply technical proficiency. Understanding how hiring managers think fundamentally changed how I structured my document.

Another important shift came from studying job market trends and expectations directly. As Harper (2012) notes, job ads themselves can serve as a roadmap for the skills, outcomes, and language that organizations prioritize. Matching my resume language to what the market actually demanded helped me focus my presentation on strategic competencies like risk management, incident response, and leadership development, rather than tactical task descriptions.

This process aligned closely with concepts learned in IDS 300W: Writing and Research Methods, where audience-based communication and rhetorical strategy were emphasized (Benoit, 2022). My resume had to operate as a strategic document, not a chronological log. It needed to show a story of impact, adaptability, and leadership — not just execution.

Ultimately, this process changed how I view technical communication altogether. Technical depth is meaningless if it cannot be communicated in ways that executives, hiring managers, and non-technical stakeholders can understand and act upon. If I could redo this process today, I would capture metrics and outcomes proactively during my work rather than trying to reconstruct them after the fact. Tracking results in real time would have made my resume — and my own understanding of my contributions — even sharper. True learning occurred when I realized that communication itself is leadership. Bridging technical and non-technical domains is not just a skill — it’s a necessity in cybersecurity. The validation of this learning came when I successfully transitioned into a civilian role as a Lead Security Engineer at Toyota, where technical communication remains critical every day, from producing reports to briefing leadership to mentoring junior staff.

Professionalism is the skillset that binds technical ability with trust, leadership, and adaptability. It’s what makes someone not just capable, but credible. Throughout my military and academic experiences, I developed a strong appreciation for the value of professionalism—from punctuality and appearance to interpersonal communication and presence. But transitioning into the civilian world taught me that while the importance of professionalism remains constant, its expression often looks very different depending on the environment. The artifact that best represents this skill isn’t a single document or project, but the set of adaptive behaviors I developed while navigating my shift from military to civilian professional norms.

One of the most difficult realizations during this transition was that the traits and behaviors that signaled professionalism in the military didn’t always translate cleanly into civilian spaces. In the Navy, professionalism meant standing at attention, speaking directly and firmly, saying “sir” and “ma’am,” and projecting a kind of unforgiving decisiveness. That made sense in a mission-driven environment where lives were often on the line. But in the corporate and academic world, where priorities and pressures are different, that approach sometimes came off as rigid or overly intense. I had to unlearn the instinct to be hyper-formal or command-oriented and instead develop a calmer, more collaborative demeanor—one that projected readiness and confidence without seeming inflexible.

This process also forced me to reflect more deeply on how I presented my own story. McAdams (2001) argues that identity is shaped through the life stories we choose to tell about ourselves. My transition out of the military required me to stop telling the same mission-oriented story and instead focus on a new one—one that emphasized empathy, flexibility, and civilian leadership potential. As the TED Ideas article points out, we often carry both redemptive and contaminated narratives about our pasts; part of professionalism is learning how to reframe challenges into learning experiences and communicate your growth in a way that resonates with others (TED Ideas, 2016).

This was especially evident during my SkillBridge internship and early professional interviews. I realized that professionalism in the civilian context meant being approachable, emotionally intelligent, and responsive rather than simply being sharp, fast, and efficient. Simple things like how quickly I responded to emails, how I structured a meeting, or how I phrased feedback became signals of professionalism. I began to prioritize timely communication, showing up early to meetings, preparing thoroughly, and adjusting my tone depending on the audience.

What helped solidify these lessons were my interdisciplinary studies courses, particularly those that required group collaboration and class presentations. In courses like IDS 300W: Writing and Research Methods, I had to listen, synthesize input from others, and present shared work with a balanced tone and message. These experiences helped me build emotional intelligence and professional presence—what I once thought of as “military bearing,” but redefined for a different landscape (Benoit, 2022).

Professionalism also became a question of how to manage credibility when the stakes are high but the setting isn’t life-or-death. In cybersecurity, especially in leadership or consulting roles, you must demonstrate technical expertise without talking over people, guide a team without barking orders, and navigate conflict without defaulting to a strict hierarchy. That was a real mindset shift. I had to learn how to model calm leadership, how to give space for discussion, and how to adapt my tone to get buy-in rather than obedience.

REFERENCES

Benoit, B. (2022). IDS 300W: Writing and Research Methods [Class lecture]. Old Dominion University.

Fordes. (n.d.). What are ePortfolios? Old Dominion University. https://sites.wp.odu.edu/eportfolios/what-are-eportfolios/

Hamann, D. (2019). Hidden in plain sight: Alternate Data Streams. https://davidhamann.de/2019/02/23/hidden-in-plain-sight-alternate-data-streams/

Harper, R. (2012). The collection and analysis of job advertisements: A review of research methodology. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 63(12), 2349–2363. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.22729

McAdams, D. P. (2001). The psychology of life stories. Review of General Psychology, 5(2), 100–122. https://doi.org/10.1037/1089-2680.5.2.100

Microsoft. (2022). File system control codes. Microsoft Learn. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/openspecs/windows_protocols/ms-fscc/6e3f7352-d11c-4d76-8c39-2516a9df36e8

National Institute of Standards and Technology. (2020). NICE Cybersecurity Workforce Framework (NIST SP 800-181 Revision 1). https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.SP.800-181r1

National Institute of Standards and Technology. (2020). Zero Trust Architecture (NIST SP 800-207). https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.SP.800-207

Reed, J., & Koliba, C. (2001). Understanding reflection. University of Vermont. https://www.uvm.edu/sites/default/files/media/reflection.pdf

SANS Institute. (2021). Windows forensic analysis. https://www.sans.org/cyber-security-courses/windows-forensic-analysis/

TED Ideas. (2016, August 30). The two kinds of stories we tell about ourselves. TED Conferences. https://ideas.ted.com/the-two-kinds-of-stories-we-tell-about-ourselves/

Wright, E. W., & Domagalski, T. A. (1999). Improving employee selection with a revised resume format. Journal of Management Development, 18(9), 790–802. https://doi.org/10.1108/02621719910300808