DEV Community

Philip
Philip

Posted on

It's been a while - Hello Cyber Security!

I realized it's been a long time since I last posted on here, and a lot has happened.

Last time I posted I was starting a new role as a tech support specialist with a startup in St. Pete Florida, and it was a great experience! I loved the company, the people, and the product especially, and it was so much fun troubleshooting and supporting its users. However, like all good things, they must come to an end (sometimes).

While there, I got an offer to attend the Air Traffic Controller Academy with the FAA, which was an opportunity not given to most people, (especially since I took various tests and had to pass a rigorous background check), and decided to take the plunge and give it a shot. So, my time with the company ended in November of 2019.

The academy was a great experience. I never knew what a process it took for aircrafts to efficiently and quickly land and takeoff, making the flight schedule as seamless as possible for its passengers. It truly was amazing and the backend of the aviation industry as a whole, is mind blowing. I learned a ton about the safety of aviation, about certain aircrafts and how they were built to fly and what to do and not do in the rare (very rare) case a plane crashed. I wouldn't trade the experience for anything, and I truly tip my hat to the FAA and ALL of the behind the scene workers making the aviation industry function.

However, after spending a few months in the academy and passing the first phase of training, I realized that this profession wasn't for me. I couldn't see myself in this role/career long-term, and I missed tech too much. So, I put in my notice at the academy and left. But I have nothing but GREAT things to say about the FAA academy and the teachers there. They were absolutely fantastic and encouraging, and you could clearly see their passion for aviation.

But what am I going to do now? This was a question I asked myself when making the decision to leave the academy.

While in Florida and at the academy, I had developed a deep passion and love for Cyber Security. I think the field is absolutely fascinating, and I realized that is where I want to move my career to. With my background in Tech and my experience supporting web-based SaaS platforms, I made the decision that I am going to pursue a career that involved Cyber Security and Tech support. I was looking at all the paths someone could take in Cyber (and there are a lot!), but what kept calling me back to and peaked my interest the most was Web Application Security, and with my experience, I think this is a great fit for me.

So now, I am currently brushing up on past programming languages I had an interest in, (mainly speaking to you python), and learning about the OWASP best practices, and tools that will effectively help me towards this new goal, such as Burp Suite.

To further myself in this field, I have also started studying for the Security+ certification, which I hope will help me and I literally can't get enough of what entails in cyber security. It's awesome.

I am going to try to keep up with my blogs on Dev.to more often as I work towards this goal and hope to one day say "I'm officially in Cyber Security!", but until.... then back to studying.

Top comments (0)