St. Louis University Hosts High School Students For Cyber Workshop
On Wednesday March 20th, St. Louis University hosted the Security Advisor Alliance Secure Pathways Workshop, in partnership with the Gateway Higher Education Cybersecurity Consortium (GHECC), five universities and 2 community colleges in the region that work together to offer our faculty and students opportunities to learn from each other and improve the quality of cybersecurity education for all.
The Secure Pathways Series of workshops is designed to inspire a diverse and inclusive nationwide talent pool to prepare for careers in cybersecurity. The workshops last 3-4 hours, and create direct engagement between high school students and working cybersecurity professionals, illuminating pathways into the career field.
Maria Weber, MS, Program Director of the Master's of Cybersecurity and Information Systems in the School for Professional Studies at SLU hosted the event. The Workshop took place in the beautiful St. Louis Room at the Busch Student Center. Showing the students inspiring spaces on campus is great for recruitment and allows young people to imagine a brighter future for themselves.
After a discussion on the basic principles of cybersecurity, and conversations about real world security scenarios, students were broken into small teams to play Capture The Flag. CTF’s are gamified learning environments where teams of 2-3 students are taught and tested various security tools and techniques. Questions start out simple with multiple choice answers and basic browser research, to more difficult challenges requiring several steps and attention to detail. The game teaches collaboration, creativity in problem solving and analytical thinking skills.
Mentors from companies like Bayer, Protiviti, Mastercard, AT&T & Schnuck Markets shared their career stories with the students and gave guidance on what they would do if they were in the student’s seats today. Skills like communications, teamwork and problem solving were emphasized as critical for most business/government environments.
Additionally, several students from the Master’s of Cybersecurity program, and the Cyber Billikens CTF team joined as mentors and critical tech support. The students quickly jumped on tasks like ensuring each laptop was online and ready for our capture the flag experience.
The students sat with real working professionals over lunch and heard short talks from students in the SLU NICE Cyber Ambassadors Program.
Finally, the day concluded with a panel discussion between the students and our volunteer mentors. Questions ranged from “how to find a job?”, to “How do you keep going when you hit difficult roadblocks…how do you stay motivated on the tough days?” Alliance staff shared ongoing resources with the students including access to our virtual Career Guide, and the TeamPurpl.org website that can help guide future career exploration.
"Having the opportunity to work with young adults teaching not only cybersecurity as a career, but how cybersecurity impacts almost all aspects of life helped remind me why I love working in this profession." - Michael Cheaney
“The SAA provides a valuable community service helping students understand the value and promise of cybersecurity in the modern world. As we are in a environment with rapidly evolving technological change, I am glad to be part of this small piece to help those students spark a passion for a career field full of rewards for them, their families, and humankind overall.” - Eric Kruse
The Alliance would like to thank Mastercard, Cisco Secure, Netskope & Palo Alto Networks for sponsoring the Alliance in 2024 and making workshops like these possible. We couldn’t do what we do without your partnership.
