Cyber Career Exploration Is A Hit at Maryville University in St. Louis

Students from high schools across the St. Louis Region visited Maryville University for a day of career exploration and learning games. Dr. Brian Gant, head of the cybersecurity program at Maryville welcomed students to campus along with Dr. Phyllis Davis.

Students were broken into smaller groups and a tour of the campus was integrated into several visits to important facilities like classrooms, the cyber fusion center and computer labs, the student center and more. Each stop of the tour included a short talk or panel from administrators, professors and alumni.

After their tour of the campus, students were broken into even smaller teams, and guided on an exploration of the NIST Cybersecurity framework through a series of scenarios. Each team discussed the challenges with a “Resiliency” mindset that allowed them to identify the most important assets, how to protect that data, how they might set alarms that would identify bad actors in the system, how to respond to get them out, and how to recover and get back to business for their customers, employees and partners. Mentors from companies around St. Louis like DOT Foods, Centene, Mastercard, AT&T, Johnson & Johnson and more came to support the students and provide guidance.

Lunch that was graciously provided by our partners at GHECC, or the Gateway Higher Education Cybersecurity Consortium and led to some great conversations between security professionals, students and their teachers.

Following lunch, students formed teams of 3-4 students and played “Capture The Flag”, an online learning game that challenges students to work as a team, think analytically and solve problems. Mentors help students find the pathway to the challenges, often showing them online tools that professionals use to decipher hidden messages, research complex vulnerabilities and patch systems that need fixing.

The Global Center’s Secure Pathway’s series of workshops are designed to provide career exposure to high school students in the field of cybersecurity.

Students were broken into smaller groups and a tour of the campus was integrated into several visits to important facilities like classrooms, the cyber fusion center and computer labs, the student center and more. Each stop of the tour included a short talk or panel from administrators, professors and alumni.

The game itself opened up conversations among the students around ethical uses of technology including AI.

To close the day, students and mentors had an open question and answer period. Questions like “am I waisting my time learning how to code now that AI is around?”, and “why do we see so few women in cybersecurity, and how do we change that?”. Our mentors did a great job addressing those concerns and provided practical advice to overcoming career obstacles and imposter syndrome.

Connecting the skills that students are learning to real careers, and real careers to real people is a critical step to encouraging more young people into our space.

The GCC would like to thank Enterprise, Edward Jones, BJC, The Regional Business Council, Washington University and Cortex Innovation Community for supporting these events and making career exposure and support possible in our region.