RE: Student-Degree valuable or not?

["DeGennaro, Gregory" <Gregory_DeGennaro () csaa com>]

Dan,

According the statistics released by Channel 11 in Silicon Valley, the top
two jobs in the US in the next four years will be;

1)  Biotech
2)  Hi-Tech Security - Physical and logical

I agree with some of the posts that most software coding will be shipped
over seas.  However, Information security may not be due to the breach of
security and if they do ship information security over seas then they are
either not thinking and/or "Homeland Security" is not doing their job.  

There are lots of room for code reviewers that search for buffer overflows,
back doors/channels, and other compromising flaws or malicious coding in
software and operating systems.  I know for a fact that Netscreen was or is
hiring code reviewers.

A degree is a degree and will benefit you no matter what.  After you are
completed with your degree, I would think about entering the Master's
program at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh PA, the home of CERT or
Computer Emergency Response Team.  Or any University who will be recognized
as a leader in information security?

Also, the key to information security is to know a good deal about
everything in the TCP/IP and OSI models (Physical, Network, Application, and
etc. layers).  This way if information security does not work out for you,
you can move on to other careers in the industry, and information security
encompasses everything both physically and logically.

Regards,

Greg DeGennaro Jr., CCNP
Security Analyst


-----Original Message-----
From: DANIEL SIMPSON [mailto:DANSIMPS () uat edu] 
Sent: Thursday, September 25, 2003 4:23 PM
To: Security-Basics
Subject: Student-Degree valuable or not?

Hey,


I just retired from a 4 year stint in Silicon Valley where I was a
System Administrator/Technical Engineer for a couple start-ups. I
started getting more and more into Information Security and finally
decided to quit my boring job and move to Arizona to enter a 4 year
program at a private university. I'm getting my B.S in software
engineering with an emphasis on security. How valuable will this degree
be and what are the forecasts for the job market in this field in about
4 years. The program is REALLY expensive and I cashed out all my
investments/savings to pay for it (roughly 10k a year). I might even go
to law school afterwards. Is this degree worth the estimated 40-50k? I'm
22 btw, my dream is to work for Microsoft or Goggle for a couple years
and start my own security firm.


Any suggestions would be awesome.

Dann

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------------