Struggles After Graduation

Recently, I have been pondering this tough job market. I graduated with a degree in Computer Science from Lewis University in 2023. I received high honors and loved my time in school. During my time at Lewis, there was a major talk about how good a degree in Computer Science was. Talk about six-figure salaries and laid-back work culture buzzed around my noggin constantly. The best part about the degree? I legitimately loved doing it. I saw this as an absolute win, a field I genuinely enjoy, with a promising career outlook made me extremely excited.

In the Fall of 2022, a cascade of unfortunate events occurred. We had major tech layoffs and a major release of a new type of technology that shook the industry and the world to its core: ChatGPT. This coupling effect killed the entry-level job market for students and other would-be engineers at my skill level.

From my graduation in May of 2023 to the current day, I’ve been keeping my skills sharp and biding my time for the supposed AI bubble to pop, all while working a job as a janitor. Two and a half years of waiting for something to work out for us, entry-levelers.

Cybersecurity

When I first started at Lewis University in the Fall of 2019. I began as a Computer Science major with a focus on Cybersecurity. I loved the idea of defending organizations, computers, networks, etc., from would-be bad actors. As my dad would say, the “tip of the spear.”

When you major in Computer Science at Lewis, which is probably the case for other schools as well, you need to take a couple of introductory coding classes. These classes were amazing for me. I had a dual love for both cybersecurity and software engineering. From that point on, I wanted to pursue software engineering more seriously and keep cybersecurity in my back pocket, if you will, for if something goes awry. Well, I think something went awry.

The Sunk Cost Fallacy

I have spent a lot of time between graduation and the current day thinking about what I should try to pursue. Whether it’s strictly software engineering, pursuing a master’s degree, getting certified in AWS or something similar, or pursuing cybersecurity, my first degree choice.

When thinking about doing any of these strategies, I kept thinking about all the time that I spent during my undergraduate years investing in computer science/software engineering. I was concerned about the wasted time that would occur. This is a classic example of the sunk cost fallacy.

The sunk cost fallacy is as follows: the tendency to continue an endeavor due to previously invested resources like time, money, or effort, even when it’s not in your best interest. For me, I was definitely trying to continue software engineering despite knowing that it’s probably not the best course of action currently. I was afraid to abandon, not completely, software engineering and pursue something different.

The Decision to Pursue Cybersecurity

Recently, I finally decided it was time to pursue cybersecurity. My first thought was to obtain a master’s degree in cybersecurity, but master’s degrees aren’t cheap. I know I have IT skills and definitely have the coding chops. That’s when I decided to research cybersecurity certificate programs, and I discovered the Google Cybersecurity Certificate program on Coursera.

I thought to myself that I could do this certificate program and afterwards take the CompTIA Security+ exam to bolster my resume. Another big element that I was excited about was doing write-ups about my time learning cybersecurity. I built this fancy blog website for this exact reason. Not only that, I plan on posting these blogs on my LinkedIn to let people know about my progress, and hopefully get noticed by some companies.

Renewed Vigor

After I decided to finally overcome my thoughts about wasted time. By the way, the computer science/software engineering degree was not wasted time, and the skills I used to obtain that degree, the non-technical skills like time management, collaboration, communication, and leadership, alongside technical skills like coding, understanding CLIs, and IT skills, will be extremely useful for pursuing this field and jobs within this field. I now have renewed vigor for the IT field of jobs and am very excited to pursue a cybersecurity career.

Subsequent Blogs

From here on out, I will be posting blogs about the things I learn in the Google Cybersecurity program on Coursera. I anticipate the first couple of blogs to be non-technical, because the course is built for anyone with any background, and they need to cover elements such as what a cybersecurity analyst does, and various domains one can work in. As I get more into the meat and potatoes of the course, the blogs will become more technical.