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john_strinlaiyesterday at 7:36 PM4 repliesview on HN

context: i teach at a local college in IT. some of my classes are part of the cybersec curriculum.

as far as i have been able track (linkedin, email, etc.) roughly 3/4 of the previous graduating cybersec class has been unable to get a job in cybersec. probably 1/2 of those are struggling to find even basic sysadmin or password-resetter positions.

this is significantly different than when the program started (around 2015 or so), where roughly 4/5 of the graduating class had jobs (specifically in cybersec) lined up at the time of graduation.

cybersec is a bit of an outlier, but i see a similar trend with the networking program and game design program as well (the only other 2 i have first-hand knowledge of)

its rough out there! (i am recommending to my kids that they avoid post-secondary)


Replies

brailsafeyesterday at 7:40 PM

Game design also seems like it'd be an outlier fwiw, since it's a niche that people desperately want to get into if they've participated in contemporary entertainment culture in the last 2 decades, and that schools are happy to take their money for, but realistically the competition's always seemed high. Networking is a pretty boring unglamorous pursuit though that's very behind the scenes as well as being difficult and niche.

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elevationyesterday at 8:14 PM

None of the top cyber security talent I've worked with went to school for it, and I have been underwhelmed by what I see coming from college programs. These kinds of credentials themselves are not a signal of quality to me.

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alephnerdyesterday at 7:53 PM

> some of my classes are part of the cybersec curriculum

> as far as i have been able track (linkedin, email, etc.) roughly 3/4 of the previous graduating cybersec class has been unable to get a job in cybersec. probably 1/2 of those are struggling to find even basic sysadmin or password-resetter positions.

What is the curriculum that is being taught in your program?

If it's "how to be a Splunk or Crowdstrike" admin or "how to be an L1 SOC" I don't think that is a hireable skill at this point.

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gedyyesterday at 7:49 PM

> I am recommending to my kids that they avoid post-secondary

I think that's a mistake, unless you mean "and go into debt for college". Working with many people over the years the educated (in STEM) are noticably better quality than high school or bootcamp folks on average. Work ethic or amount of code written is not an issue, just the general thinking through of problems.

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