I am interested in cybersecurity because computers and technology are a huge part of our lives and society. As technology advances so will hacking abilities and people being able to expose vulnerabilities. Threats to cybersecurity are very far reaching from just one individual being exploited, to whole corporations, to potentially entire nations. It’s so important to get ahead of the threats before they are exploited because the consequences could be very dire.  I think it’s really fascinating to learn about how people are able to exploit systems and how others are able to go in and block those that are hacking the systems. It’s a very high-tech game of cat and mouse and solving puzzles which is super interesting to me!

Some other majors offered at ODU that relate to cybersecurity would be computer science, design/technology, criminal justice, and career/technical education. Computer science would go towards understanding computers and their programming which is essential to cybersecurity. It’s so important to look at how the software was designed and improve on past flaws and vulnerabilities. Design/Technology would help one understand the different tech that’s out there and the design involved in it. Knowing how something was designed can help learn the framework and help guard against potential flaws in the system. Career/Technical education would also help understand the broad tech career fields there are so understanding potential areas where there could be cyber security threats. It’s important to know what fields could be at risk for cyber attacks so they can plan accordingly and try to prevent crimes. Finally, criminal justice to help understand the process of prosecuting these cyber crimes. It’s important to know how to catch the people breaking laws and hacking software and making sure they can not do it to others. 

I’m really looking forward to learning all I can about cybersecurity and using this knowledge in the future!