Good afternoon Dr. Yoon,

I just wanted to give you a quick update about how I am doing and give some input on what I think may be good to add to the curriculum there.

I have finished all of my Cyber training with the Air Force. It was 6 months of intense Offensive Cyber Operation and Defensive Cyber Operations with a capstone of red vs. blue style in house cyber fighting. I have been working for the Air National Guard since then but looking for a full time job in the civilian field as well. I found a civilian job near the city that pays very well and I partly have Mercy College's Graduate program to thank for that. Lots of companies like seeing the advanced degree. In addition to the degree from Mercy my CISSP put me to the top of the list. In this new job I will be in charge of a small 3 man team that will be doing everything from hunting for known vulnerabilities to proactively finding unknown vulnerabilities.

It has been a little over a year since I was at Mercy so I'm not sure how the curriculum has changed but I would recommend the following things to help make the students of the graduate or undergraduate Cybersecurity degree more marketable.

  1. Prepare them to use Nessus or ACAS. These are two vulnerability scanners that even if they had the smallest of exerpience with could add a bullet to their resume that would make the extremly attractive.
  2. Push students to take the CISSP exam. Even if they don't have the experience requirements met they can get the Associate of (ISC)2 designation which they can keep until they gain enough experience and will then turn into a CISSP.
With a CISSP and some ACAS or Nessus experience students will be looking at around $100,000 when they graduate.

I hope you are doing well. It has been awhile since we last talked but I wanted you to know that you and Mercy College left a positive lasting impression on me.

Sincerely,

Erik R. Berg, CISSP