LeADERS Program Reflection
Why did I join the program?
I signed up for LeADERS after first hearing about it from one of my professors. As it was an LLC class, and we were all in our first semester, we would get many tips on things we could do to improve our college experience. I realized I could get a unique distinction at graduation but didn't expect to get more than the bronze medal. As college went on, I realized how valuable the program was and found myself striving to finish more LeADERS objectives, which influenced my signing up for the VICEROY Research Program. Once I saw how other candidates were using the LeADERS program to display their hard work throughout their college career to future employers, I saw it was even more beneficial than I had thought, inspiring me to completely redesign my ePortfolio from the ground up.
Reflection on Professional Development
Looking back on the LeADERS program as a whole, I see more clearly how my skills developed as a result of the program. While I already had come into college with some leadership experience under my belt due to my high school job, I quickly discovered that my specific type of leadership was clearly tailored to that job. However, thanks to multiple LeADERS experiences, such as my Research Project and Academic Internship, I slowly learned how to refine those skills into something that worked in any aspect of my life, not just one old job. But the LeADERS program is about more than just leadership. Throughout the program, they highlighted the importance of connections and understanding. As it relates to my career, I also gained a lot of valuable insight into this with my leadership and writing intensive courses, Cyber Ethics and Cyber Strategy and Policy. Before those courses, I can acknowledge that in mass cyber attacks, I usually viewed victims of the attacks as a statistic, even though I wanted a job where I could make a difference. These courses helped change my view of these instances, leading me to want to help the people affected instead of simply lowering the number affected. I also became significantly more educated in how cybersecurity policies affect individuals worldwide and why they can be detrimental even if they are the most secure on paper. Along with my LLC helping to promote community and working with others, a core theme emerged of interconnection, showing me how the LeADERS program improved every aspect of my working and connecting with others. I didn't think about it at the time, but I believe the program really helped to define a large chunk of my undergraduate experience, leading me to participate in a lot of what my school has to offer, meet more people, and create the professional network I have developed today.
Impact on Professional Development
As I briefly touched on before, every experience I took part in in the LeADERS program taught me valuable skills and lessons that I can take with me as I advance in my career, but these are not just the key themes I noticed; I learned actual marketable hard and soft skills. Through my leadership course, Cyber Ethics, I learned how to read and understand ethical frameworks as well as being able to analyze the ethical impacts of cybersecurity policies better, allowing me to see how a policy will affect individuals under it, not just security. My academic internship taught me a slew of useful tools I'll carry with me, including but not limited to experience in an office setting, navigation and automation using SharePoint, workplace presentation skills, and a deeper knowledge of real-world cybersecurity operations. My research project drastically improved my research skills and vetting process, along with an improved understanding of internet protocols and how they can be altered and implemented. My writing intensive course challenged my critical thinking skills, building open the policy analysis skills I developed in my ethics course and then allowing me to build upon my argumentative skills when discussing these policies' relations to real world events. As is natural with a writing intensive course, I also feel that it contributed to my report writing skills. Finally, my Living Learning Community built upon soft skills critical in cybersecurity, such as my introduction to social networking and all of the associated skills, keeping up with current events in my field, and taking my time management and organization to the next level. Being in the cybersecurity field necessitates being well developed in all of these skills to strengthen my report writing, continued learning, threat analysis, general cybersecurity aptitude, and many other critical aspects of the job. These LeADERS experiences also set me up for a path of continued improvement as I realized that even when I believe I am well developed in a skill or topic, I can always continue to learn and grow my knowledge and skills, sometimes dramatically more.