Solving the Cyber Workforce & Skills Challenges through Experiential Learning II

Researchers plan to recruit students interested in cybersecurity to work with industry participants facing challenging security problems. Industry representatives will also be asked to mentor their student workers. 

Funded by the CCI Hub

Project Investigators

Principal Investigator (PI): Brian K. Ngac, Instructor, George Mason University School of Business Department of Information Systems and Operations

Co-PI: Nirup Menon, Professor, Mason School of Business Department of Information Systems and Operations

Rationale and Background

The cybersecurity workforce and skills shortage can be mitigated by leveraging experiential learning to provide students with hands-on training through real projects with real industry participants.

This strategy can prepare students to be more marketable and effective in the workforce through the integration of industry participation. 

Researchers, who have run experiential learning courses since Spring 2021, have evolved their methodology to provide students an effective experience that can lead to early career success.

Methodology

• Recruiting: There will be two calls:
  • Industry partners: Researchers will seek participants through networks including LinkedIn, small business development centers, the Northern Virginia Technology Council (NVTC), CCI Partners, and Virginia universities. Industry participants will meet instructors to share project ideas, approaches, potential deliverables, mutual goals, and the experiential learning effort process. 
  • Students: Researchers will reach out to Virginia universities, their career centers, and CCI nodes. Other sources include Virginia chapters of organizations such as the Information Systems Security Association, Information Systems Audit and Control Organization, International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium, Minorities in Cybersecurity, and Women in Cybersecurity.
• Project definition: The instructor will work with industry participants to define the project scope, deliverables, expectations, and goals of the experiential learning effort. 
  
• Execution: In 12-week sessions held in an agile environment, students meet clients (industry participants) weekly to present progress, receive feedback, and discuss next steps. Students are instructed to dedicate additional group time (outside of client and instructor meetings) every week for project execution.
  
• Presentation: Students will present their work and discuss lessons learned to interested parties. 
  
• Lessons Learned & Scaling: The instructional team will look for areas to improve and grow the experiential learning effort.
  

Students, who’ll be paid a stipend for their work, will also participate in a networking event with industry participants and other select cyber executives.

Projected Outcomes

Student participants will get paid to work on real-world problems in the cybersecurity industry while being mentored by professionals. 

Researchers hope to see some students get employment offers. Since Spring 2021, researchers’ experiential learning courses resulted in at least four student being offered full-time positions by an industry participant

Industry participants will get access to a known talent pool for recruitment opportunities and a cost-effective way to attempt new / risky projects.