Preparing students for cybersecurity professions using real-world experiences

The National Science Foundation awarded $350,000 to Santa Ana College through its STEM Education program (CFDA 47.076) to prepare students for cybersecurity professions using real-world experiences from April 1, 2022 to March 31, 2025. The Project Grant funding will support integrating cybersecurity competitions and job-readiness modules into coursework, providing opportunities for students to apply skills learned in real-world settings through a partnership with the Information Technology Disaster Resource Center. Students will participate in incident response programs aligned with federal standards to help the college become a Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense. The funding also supports rigorous job training and work-based learning experiences resulting in employment opportunities through industry and community partnerships.

Abstract

Cybersecurity is critical to the protection of computer systems and networks. Many businesses and organizations need to hire cybersecurity professionals to protect their cyberinfrastructure from persistent and increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks. Although the global cybersecurity skills shortage has fallen, the size of the workforce is still 65% below what IT needs to be. This project will study how to create seamless continuity from the classroom to the cybersecurity workforce by integrating cybersecurity competitions and job-readiness modules into existing coursework and providing opportunities for students to apply cybersecurity skills learned in their courses in real-world settings. The project leverages a partnership with the information technology disaster resource center (itdrc), a national non-profit entity with a presence in orange county, to provide students with the opportunity to join the itdrc and be involved with specific disaster pre-planning activities and potential disaster recovery efforts. The project will create an incident response cybersecurity program aligned with critical business and federal requirements by integrating FEMA courses related to disaster response and incident command structure into existing coursework. Mapping the curriculum to federal standards will help position santa ANA college to become a center of academic excellence in cyber defense (CAE-CD). Students will take part in in rigorous job-readiness and work-based learning that will result in employment through partnerships with committed industry and community partners. Project evaluation will consist of an analysis of quantitative and qualitative data to provide a structured review of program implementation to ensure that the project is progressing as planned and to analyze the level of attainment of project objectives, targets, and goals. This project has the potential to increase program enrollment, retention, and completion of an associate of science degree in IT cybersecurity operations, especially among students from populations underrepresented in the cybersecurity workforce. This project is funded by the advanced technological education program that focuses on the education of technicians for the advanced-technology fields that drive the nation's economy. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.