Gaining a New Perspective

I traveled from Pennsylvania to Boston, Massachusetts for my experience. While in Boston, I stayed and worked with Brandyn Schult who is the senior cybersecurity researcher at Boston Cybernetics Institute. Mr. Schult graciously let me stay in his home with his family and we were able to spend every waking hour of my trip working together. I was able to work with him in his home office as well as work in his company’s office in the heart of Harvard Square. I networked with Mr. Schult’s coworkers as well as several past coworkers. In my classes there tends to be a lot of broad ideas and theories presented about cybersecurity, but in contrast, my time in Boston was spent working through real-life problems and scenarios.

I was feeling discouraged with my path in school. I felt like the information that I was learning was not teaching me the skills I needed to get a job. After my time shadowing Mr. Schult, I could relate my course work to an actual job. I was able to experience what it was like working in a professional office and from home as a cybersecurity specialist. I gained networking skills and contacts who continue to guide me and offer support. The cybersecurity world is constantly changing and the skills I am gaining to keep learning and adapting to this changing environment are more important than learning a specific program or tool. I gained a valuable new perspective and was able to organize my priorities.

I have been perusing a major in Security Risk Analysis and have been completing course work related to this field. I have been many strategies and theories about this field. While in Boston, I was able to see how the information I was learning in my classes will be useful in the real world. With the help of the network that I built in Boston, I was able to identify what skills I needed to improve on and I will be able to focus my course work on those topics.

The networking and connections that I gained through this experience will help guide me through graduation and into the workforce. I have new mentors in the field that I hope to one day work in. I learned what it takes to be a cybersecurity professional, and I am motivated to graduate. I am committed to continue to reach out to the contacts that I made post-graduation. I will take the knowledge that I have gained and apply it to the rest of my time at Penn State.