When I heard cybersecurity before I always assumed that it was like on tv where the hacker has 3 screens, furiously typing as green text scrolled across the screen with a countdown timer beeping dramatically in the background. To me it was unachievable because it did not make sense.

My background is not in computer science, IT or anything related to this. In this blog I want to document my journey transitioning from being a teacher in Adult Education to Cybersecurity. At this point in time I am not sure where I want to go in cyber sec as an end goal, but I am leaning towards Security engineer.

There are many skills that transfer over from education to Cybersecurity:

Communication

• having to explain concepts to a large group of people with different learning abilities allowed for me to develop my communication skills.

• It also helped me to develop my active listening skills as I had to understand the issue each student had, and make a customised plan for them.

• I also learned how to explain complex topics in a way that is easy to understand - this is useful for security awareness training, writing reports and documenting security policies

• I am used to presenting information clearly which is useful for security briefings or explaining risks to non technical staff

Critical Thinking and Problem solving

• Teaching requires analysing students needs and adjusting methods which is similar to troubleshooting

• I have experience evaluating information for accuracy which is useful with analysing security threats and vulnerabilities

Research and Continuous Learning

• I know how to self learn and adapt which is very important since threats and technologies evolve constantly

• My ability to break down concepts into teachable chunks help me to learn and document security topics effectively

Patience and Attention to Detail

• In teaching I need to be patient with all my students, in cybersecurity it is also required. Debugging code, analysing logs or investigating security incidents

• Attention to detail helps when reviewing security policies, analysing network traffic or performing security assessments

People Skills and Security Awareness

• Cybersecurity is also about human behaviour. My experience working with people help in roles like security awareness training, social engineering testing or incident response

Adaptability and Resilience

• Sometimes teaching meaning thinking on my feet and adjusting to unexpected challenges. This is great for handling fast paced security incidents or adapting to new threats

So, why did I pick Cybersecurity?

I was very unhappy in teaching because of some issues, this lead me to look into other career paths. I always had an interest in computers, I had just assumed because I was not great at math that it was out of the question for me.

It wasn’t until I had a friend in Cybersecurity who convinced me to try after I told him I was interested in learning Python. This friend helped me through a python course and debugged my code with me.

This unlocked something in me, at first I thought I could teach some IT classes but as I got deeper in my studying I realised that Cybersecurity was something I wanted to pursue. I am going to document this journey as I am in a unique situation where I am attempting to join this career without a degree. Using certs, courses and some projects to hopefully get into this field.