Cyber Defense Club Alumni Gain Valuable Skills and Land Excellent Careers

By Mallory Pittman

Students of Kansas State University will find that the Cyber Defense Club can benefit them in multiple ways. Club President, Richard Petrie, gave some insight on valuable skills and knowledge that might be gained by students.

Petrie mentioned that there are the obvious benefits that include the wider range of scenarios they may be able to handle better because they know more and have seen more.

The Cyber Defense Club meets in the Department
of Computer Science section of the Kansas
State Engineering Complex.

Other benefits include the fact that it is something other than a grade point average to put on a resume. Petrie explained that from personal experience of talking to recruiters, he knows many would rather see a slightly lower GPA paired with more extracurricular activities than a perfect GPA. This shows the extra work that a person is willing to do in order to gain outside, more diverse experience.

When entering a work field that is directly in, or related to cyber defense, the most valuable skill is “the ability to work on your feet.” Going into competitions, the team comes with a plan.  However, because of obstacles, the plan usually does not last more than an hour. This requires the members to problem solve on the spot. Competition team members often get assigned positions that they have never worked before.

Caleb Flemming (left) and club president, 
Richard Petrie (right), discuss upcoming
events with the CDC members.  They meet
weekly in DUE 2208, the Cyber Defense Lab.

Even if a student in the Cyber Defense Club is not a computer science major, skills learned in the club can help them in other areas as well. The club offers a different perspective and more experience in varying fields. In example, secure hardware design can be tied with cyber security, and is a field that has huge demand and can land an individual a nice job, and provide one more asset that makes a potential worker desirable to employers.

Another valuable skill that is improved through work done on this team is the ability to work with others. Time-crunch situations that are a part of the Cyber Defense Club’s competitions build skills that are useful even in fields outside of cyber defense.

Dr. Bartis is a Kansas State professor who was involved with and created the Cyber Defense Club, and has served as a great resource for the team. Though no names were given, Petrie specifically mentioned that some of his club’s alumni are now working at Linked In, Los Alamos National Laboratory, the Army’s Cyber Warfare Brigade, and Cylance.  Speaking of alumni in general, Petrie stated: “I don’t know [an] alumni who has graduated from CDC [Cyber Defense Club] that isn’t in a great position.”

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