Hello everyone!

My progress on my senior project has been going somewhat well. However, I’ve been having a lot of trouble keeping up with three classes simultaneously. It wouldn’t be so bad if they were all structured, but having two incredibly demanding classes on top of an unstructured senior project is not something I would recommend. I have trouble allocating time to work on the senior project, especially when I’m not actually required to work on it per se in the same way that I would have to work on a regular class.

I would like to talk briefly about Cybersecurity and relating to its program here at OSU. At the end of this quarter, I will be graduating with both my Computer Science Bachelor’s degree (my second Bachelor’s degree) and the Cybersecurity certification. I would like to give a fair warning to anyone who wants to go through with the cybersecurity certification program through eCampus: It’s not for the faint of heart. There have been multiple classes where I’ve had to get a large group of students together so we can figure out what exactly homework assignments are asking of us and what we need to do in lieu of having a teacher.

The eCampus Cybersecurity courses are less taught as they are supervised, in that you generally read a book (or Canvas modules) and do assignments based on that, while the professors are just there to answer questions and sometimes give extended help (this was mostly the case for Cryptography which is the hardest class on eCampus by far). So, I would just like to give that fair warning to anyone who thinks they want to pursue this path. It will be hard, I learned a lot (mostly through googling and experience rather than from the modules), and I would do it again, but I’m happy that I don’t have to do it again, if that makes sense. If you have even a small interest in Cybersecurity, I would recommend it, assuming you have the ability to function in an online context. Or, take the on-campus version, which I hear is much better.

I think the most important thing that the eCampus Cybersecurity program teaches you is how to effectively use documentation, which is very important when you get out into the working world. I avoided documentation like the plague early on because I have trouble reading large blocks of text especially if they aren’t super interesting. Now, I read documentation where I can to find exactly what I need to work. It’s a great skill that has been developed and helps me on a daily basis.

All in all, everything is going well, though I wish I was less busy. Taking 3 classes with eCampus is a lot of work. See you all next time.