Phase 2: Accelerate and Glide

Key Takeaways

[Music] so [Music] good morning everyone blessings to you all thank you so much for joining us again for this week's episode on hbcu live i hope you're all having a very blessed wednesday uh morning or afternoon depending on where you are joining us from today if you if you missed last week's hbcu live episodes no worries you can definitely find them via linkedin youtube or twitter where we discuss what to expect on how to prepare yourself before you apply to our hbcu academy if this is your first time joining allow me to introduce myself my name is monisha bush but you can call me moe and i am your host for today's hbcu live webinar today which is the second of a three-part weekly series that will give you all the information you need to learn about one of our most recent academies here at sands our hbcu academy again a quick intro for me i am the us missions programs and partnerships coordinator for sands and i have been with sands a little bit over four and a half years i help drive forward all of our mission programs in the western hemisphere coordinating with partners both internal and external building new partnerships and relationships and it is my gracious responsibility to help our partners and program entities connect the dots among our sans academy operations marketing products and career placement i also work as the media partnerships coordinator with our sans hbcu committee where it is our mission to create a bridge to diversify cyber security with innovative black talent from historically black colleges and universities now last week i began the series with a quick raw write down hbcu historical 101 and i will remind you again that if you have watched any of my previous webinars you will notice i like to keep things very light fun energetic but also very much informational at the same time so last week i dropped a few did you knows it was a really fun activity where i just kind of listed some facts and asked our viewers to kind of drop ones in the chat if they know if they knew about that fact or if they did not this week i want to open up to allow for any current hbcu students and alumni to just shout out their hbcu so take this time and if you have attended any hbcu please drop those names in the chop in the chat box and show some love to your school so let me see those names i'm sure that we have some individuals here let's go florida memorial university i know that's right miami gardens let me see some love for those schools y'all drop those names drop those names and my apologies if there's a little bit of a delay but please feel free to drop those names throughout this entire webinar [Music] so next i like to share some hbcu facts because for me you just don't know where you're going unless you know where you've been so i don't know about you but i always like to pay homage because at some point in time we are all standing on the shoulders of giants so here is a few facts about hbcus fact number one you do not have to be black to attend students of all races attend these schools the department of education reports that 76 of hbcu students are black 13 are white 3 percent are hispanic and 1 percent are asian so just be sure to share those facts with all of your friends and just let them know you don't necessarily have to be like to attend an hbcu some people really do assume that you do fact number two hbcus are concentrated predominantly in two regions the majority of hbcus are on the east coast and in the south there are more than a hundred of them in 20 states in washington dc fact number three some well-known black celebrities are hbcu grads so oprah is an alumna of tennessee state spike lee and samuel jackson are more house college men um and lee also studied communications while jackson studied marine biology before he even switched to performing arts so i i thought that was something that i definitely didn't know um and then we have sister felicia rashad and debbie allen along with p diddy himself who attended howard university thought that was a cool fact fact number three hbcus are often called the cradle of black leadership many of the notable movements for civil rights started at hbcus this includes atlanta university center which can consisted of clark morehouse college spelman college and morris brown college along among the graduates of hbcus are some very important people who have made a difference in america martin luther king jr united states vice president kamala harris and supreme court justice thurgood marshall virginia state governor douglas wilder all earned their degrees from an african-american college or university before going on to become civil rights leaders while ruth simmons was president at brown university did you know that hbcus can help you get into graduate programs and professional schools many of the nation's top colleges and universities give heavy preference to applicants who attend an hbcu this includes harvard yale princeton columbia northwestern university john hopkins and amongst others so just keep that in mind that applying at hbcu can take you just further than you could ever even imagine like i mentioned last week it is no secret that i t has a diversity issue and cyber security is no exception factor in a security skill shortage exacerbated by the growing importance of infosec responsibilities in the transition to remote work due to code 19 as well as the lack of an inclusive workforce clearly raises a lot of eyebrows across our nation and as i also mentioned last week fortunately there are a growing number of programs including sans programs which cater towards supporting blacks and guiding us to learn more about cyber security more importantly putting forth concerted efforts to promote the infosec career to a wider pool of people it's just known that companies with diverse and inclusive environments are more competitive than their peers that means investing in an hbcu is an investment in organizational success so for today's conversation we will be discussing how to accelerate and glide going beyond the academics hbcu academy students go just way beyond the academics they build relationships networks support systems they share job possibilities and more in this phase of the series i will be having a conversation with alumni students and one of our very own mentors that will share their lessons learned within the community about going through our hbcu academy beyond the actual book knowledge they will discuss what they have learned about themselves the cyber security industry networking resources things about the program that are pretty much just icing on the cake and just being a part of it and how to get through things when they get tough but before i dive into my introductions of my co-host today and as well as my guest speakers i want to take a little temperature of the room i did this again last week and i just think it's important to know that you're in the room of a likes and i want everyone to just feel comfortable with answering these questions which are 100 voluntary if you can just drop those ones if this pertains to you that would be great so show of hands or show of ones how many of you are completely new to this industry being the cyber security industry let me see those ones let me see those ones if you're completely new you're coming in here you don't know anything about cyber and you just you just are wanting to learn more let me see those ones i want to remind you that this discussion that we're in is in a safe place no judgments we're simply here to inform you and to help you so thank you show of ones how many of you have some beginner or very basic knowledge of cyber security you have some basic knowledge some basic knowledge drop those ones if you have some basic knowledge of cyber security thank you guys thank you i see those ones i see those ones i really appreciate that that's awesome so our goal for this hbcu live series is no matter what your role is in the industry even if you're simply thinking about diving into cyber the cyber security space or just transitioning and you're just coming from a completely different track we want you to come away with this with a new idea a fresh perspective a new strategy with the ex expectation that you can apply anything that you learn to your life or better yet to your career path directly so thank you all for your participation i will begin with introducing my co-host we have an amazing co-host for today's conversation folks please allow me to introduce mr donnie green mr green has graciously stepped into a very important role as mentor for our hbcu academy donnie is an experienced cyber security professional with over 20 years of experience in the i t field specializing in risk management security engineering and security monitoring thank you so much for joining me today donnie thank you mom would you like to give your own brief introduction of yourself and your role your history with sans for us yes my history with sans goes back to 2015 when i was a member of the first cyber immersion academy the vet success academy that going through that academy set me up for the rest of my life gave me some skills networking with other cyber professionals and prepared me for ultimately preparing me for my role as a mentor for future cyber academies i've been mentoring uh cyber academies for going on four years now or close to four years and i it's probably the most enjoyable thing that i experienced throughout the day is helping others that are trying to get into the cyber security field awesome thank you so much for that donnie um i'm so excited to be co-hosting with you today so let's jump right into today's topic where we're discussing pretty much how to accelerate and glide going beyond the academics i will be asking you a few questions that just pretty much will give our viewers your perspective and then if any of our viewers have additional questions we will ask that you write your questions in the chat box and then at the end of our q a we'll have an additional q a at the end of this session awesome so donnie you kind of briefly described how you your history with sans but how did you actually get into cyber security got into cyber security through the military um my interest in cyber security goes back to like 1998 a friend of mine sent me a trojan oh and i clicked on the link nothing happened couple of days later he starts popping up my passwords telling me i'm running out of space on my hard drive and i just geeked out and i was like oh wow that was so so awesome how can i do that and um how can i help protect others so but it was a lo it was a long long road to get to this point um finally i was able to get into a position um received a couple of certifications and i got into a role with cyber defense got picked up for the sans program and got my first role as a contractor and i was defending the same infrastructure that i was doing in the military but i quickly found out that i didn't know a lot about the infrastructure and how to go about incident handling incident response and looking for adversaries so when i came back to work as the contractor i went from someone that was asking a lot of questions to people coming to me and asking me questions and that ultimately added to my confidence and my abilities and i i was i was like wow that training really really uh was able to set me apart initially experienced impostor syndrome got to work and you're working with more seasoned people and was worried but with that i knew the things that i was weak at and i continued to learn and ultimately went on to doing pen testing and as well as a leading dod red team cyber red team awesome amazing history in your journey there uh were there any important mentors on your journey that brought you to where you are in your career today wow yes um all throughout my military career i had mentors as a defense contractor had mentors as a civilian had mentors and one thing i i tell folks is a mentor having a mentor doesn't have to be a formal relationship you can just look to someone that that inspires you and and follow their lead and uh i had a couple of folks that that i've reached out to and was like thank you for mentoring me and they're like well i i don't remember doing it i was like yeah the the information that you were sharing being being there whenever i had questions and and being open enough to tell me all right um why don't you google that and uh try to find out so i i've been able to throughout my career been able to take those nuggets and try to pass those things on and uh truly truly thankful for for all of those um i don't don't really want to name anyone because i i'll i'll probably leave someone out because there's so many that that have helped me throughout my career i totally understand that and thank you for sharing that would you say you've learned anything about yourself as far as being an actual mentor well um i think the thing um i i've learned is is that i can push too much i i have good intentions but i've learned to that that everyone works at their own pace and to find a way to come across in a less pushy manner because like things like practice tests is as i try to encourage strongly encourage people to take their practice exams two weeks prior to the the certification attempts so that they're not experiencing anxiety and running out of time because some of the uh exams are four hours long and trying to find eight hours plus the four hours for the certification and attempt that's that's a lot of time so trying to spread that out over over a wider period definitely helps yep i can totally understand that now how important would you say is community involvement community involvement is is is very critical one thing about cyber security that that i've learned is that there are people out there that are willing to help a lot of times you just have to ask and they're regardless of how high they are within their positions ceos cisos people are just willing to help and and a lot of times you just have to ask reach out and ask so totally agree where they say close mouths don't get fed yes where where do you find your inspiration my inspiration comes from from the students for for their drive to to make it in the cyber security field and then reaching back to community networking having those contacts i've had former students that that have gone on to have roles and they're like hey do you know anybody that that is looking to get hired and i've had people from like years that were part of academy years before to link up with somebody from a recent academy and get hired be able to change their their position and get hired on with the new company so it's i think every day is is really inspirational especially as their people are succeeding going on to get hired passing their their exams yeah i think that's important uh just a few more questions here for you donnie what it's kind of a two-part question um what is the most meaningful part of of your job as a mentor and how do you actually drive engagement with your mentees so the most meaningful part is when the if someone doesn't have that that confidence in their uh their ability to pass um and be successful in the program but uh i always say if you put into work you'll you'll be successful and having the people from a non-i.t background having them succeed that that that's such an awesome feeling for me um and being able to um for the second part of the quest or second question is i host weekly check-in calls with everyone and there i go through provide provide examples talk about the the exam help them with any challenges they have with the content and um just try to provide motivation and with with this group right right now the hbcu academy it's been amazing the the teamwork that the academy has the the they're all for for one they're they're all for for helping each other succeed so they're students that host um other sessions throughout the week and help them um go through the different hands-on labs and just the the camaraderie that everyone has and and cheering each other's on the the good mornings every every morning there's a good morning uh thread that goes and uh it's this group has been truly amazing as as being one uh being together one united group i really love to hear that do you have any advice to others individuals who may thinking about who may be thinking about applying just advice on women individuals going through a tough time they find themselves kind of stuck any advice you have on how to help them get through it when the race is tough speak out let someone know um i try to i'm able to use my military background in leadership training and i'm able to pick out when someone may be having a bad time and try to recognize that reach out to them but mostly is is for folks to humble themselves and reach out if they're if they're having difficulty don't don't uh sit there and suffer sometimes it may be just one particular piece of content and there and i hate to hear when someone says oh yeah i've been working on this for for two days now and i can't i can't get past it it's like hey if it's if it's more than a couple hours post a question and slack or reach out uh send me a text or something like that so that we can get get you past that or it may be even simple as hey this this area may be uh a little uh a little challenging for you just go ahead and skip past it and then we can go back to it and address it later but definitely um asking for assistance is the number one thing i would say i agree with that just kind of not giving up on yourself and just knowing that you just have a team of people who are willing to lift you back up so say thank you donnie um you have really provided a meaningful and just detailed perspective needed for potential candidates potential mentees i truly believe in giving individuals their flowers while they're still here i think you know how important of a role you play as a mentor for hbcu academy so i really appreciate you for coming on today answering any questions for our viewers if you have any uh specific questions for mr greene please drop them in the chat box and we will address them or at least try to address all of them at the end thank you again today for uh coming on in donnie i want to move forward not a problem not a problem i want to move forward to introducing our next guest um again another very special guest today um part of our current sans hbcu cohort who can also kind of dive into a student perspective give you an idea of the day-to-day so first i would like to start with introducing mr jamal good he attended north carolina a t university as well as fayetteville state university he has also attained his gfac certification thank you so much for being here jamal hey how you doing i appreciate the invite and feels good being here not a problem uh jamal i just want to first congratulate you on successfully completing your gfax sir i know it has not been an easy feat and i'm sure that you're super proud of yourself yes i have it's been it's been a journey in a few hiccups but you know it's been fun and i enjoyed it that's good to hear having fun having fun at the same time right yes ma'am always always having fun in cyber security tinkering with the tech geeking out geeking out that's what i'm talking about so that's a good segue into the first question on how you got into the cyber industry um i guess i was in it without even realizing i was in it just doing um stuff i wasn't supposed to be doing whether it be like little hobbies having um you know the full-blown access into my house if you will without securing anything um fortunately not um not having any major problems um i've did a little bit of self-study as far as comptia and other vendors the certifications but um i've also played i have raspberry pi projects a little bit oldish but i did you know i'd dip the dabble in a little bit of everything if you will i guess i'm hobbyist if you i started off from a hobbyist nature nice kind of let those natural passions just kind of come out right yes ma'am were there any other important mentors besides donnie um on your journey that kind of brought you where you are in your career today indeed i think we always have mentors whether you know like donnie said whether you know it's explicitly expressed or not but we appreciate the the bandwidth that they offer the platform that you know or just being able to you know come and talk to somebody express um i most definitely appreciate my mentors too and i can't i can't name them all because i'll be missing somebody and blame it on my brain not my heart but yeah indeed we don't want to leave anybody out not at all awesome um same thing i asked donnie how important is community involvement and you're so great well that's so crazy me and donnie was talking last night and um he was making a joke just saying um what the kids need a village and i'm like well shoot we adults need a village too right but no um i appreciate my group and you know i fussed at them from the beginning i'm like i don't care what y'all say y'all stuck with me but you know like donnie says it's a good group um and especially i'm grateful and appreciative of my team um that includes fans um you know especially donnie i i don't you want to name everybody because i can't even name everybody but you know the immediate laura delisha chelsea uh sunny um what's it uh uh uh was it uh you know beth it's everybody it's just it's so crazy how things have came together and um you know with my hiccups i had a few testing hiccups um or should i say technical difficulties and um it was just amazing how you know for each one of them i can just reach out whatever i need i can just i can just get just get support and my team always supportive um you know like uh like donnie has said it's a couple members they start their own groups um big shout out to frederick i've seen he was on the last on the last episode he's always been been good um i just think we mesh well it's it's kind of crazy how um you know i i said in the beginning i don't know if it was the algorithm you know i know y'all handpicked or whatever but i think we really mesh well and i i enjoy i enjoy the support and it's very important because you you need to have somebody to lean on whether it's you know being in your job field you know being in the field hey man i got a problem have you run into this before or just you know you're having a bad day it's always good to have you know your network and it's very important as far as job employment new new opportunities you never know what your network is going to bring you you're so right about that and special shout out to our cyber talent team and our hbc are wonderful hbcu committee members thank you for shouting them out and i feel like you kind of already answered this question in the last question but when you wake up in the morning and you just think about your future how and where do you find your inspiration um i love all things tech has just always me and donnie be geeking out i think you know that's all i was saying some you know the theory is fun to read too but i just once you get a little taste of technology you know that's what it is so i got bit and plus i do have kids um and my family and just the passion to do better and the thirst for more and you know for everything else family's so important um totally agree with that what would you say is your best way to network and find other alike people to help you move your journey along forward um open your mouth close mouth don't get fed like y'all addressed earlier don't be afraid uh don't be afraid to attend events the conferences um there are loads of fun um if you're tired of reading if your child are studying go play a cyber security game um good advice just try to immerse yourself into it you know the audio um it's just a little bit of everything because i'm always doing something so i have to intake you know like i have to take it in multiple ways and i and i appreciate it that it is broke up in different mediums so i am allowed that so that's wonderful i think it's important to keep things mixed up as well so you know you throwing out there to you know keep it versatile and and uh play this play those cyber security games out there join those flag events out there right just kind of building on your knowledge i think that is super important um so thank you for that and finally do you have any advice to others who again like i asked donnie you know when you're going through a tough time um you just find yourself stuck besides you know leaning in on your cohorts what what would be an invite an advice that you can give to others um just how to get through it when the race is tough keep going don't give up um they've you know people are always telling me i had a um a crazy dope uh you know coping system whatever coping mechanism um i just feel like my coping you know mechanism is you know just don't give up keep going you have to you have to see the light at the end of the tunnel right it's it's it's not always going to be like this you know it's and i kind of liken it to um you know video games we all we all like video games right we didn't play them at one certain point um you know when you're you're playing that board and it gets super hard super hard it's getting hard because like you're about to level up right so i kind of liken that too in life sometimes it gets rough totally understand that um and and i and i agree that a lot up a lot of the journey is mental right like so actually believing in yourself allow you know that belief in yourself allows you to move forward to the achievement of what you believe um and then you attaining that achievement of those beliefs allows you to actually succeed so um i i just want to thank you again for joining us today um jamal and again congratulations on it attaining that firsthand cert i know you're gonna go for the g sec and plenty more um i can tell through your vibe and your personality that you probably can definitely step into that mentor role in the future i would i i could definitely just feel that energy um coming from you so again i just want to thank you again for joining us um it's been my total pleasure i appreciate it it's i i feel honored i i was going to do something with sans you know i feel like i've been given the opportunity of a lifetime and i appreciate it especially with the premier cyber security and all that so i'm honored and thank you to be here not a problem my next guest um again all of our guests are very special guests and they all are part of our current cohort i would like to introduce uh miss danielle mingo she also has attained and received her certification for her g fact uh miss danielle attended delaware state university how are you doing today i'm doing great i'm doing great i'm happy to be here awesome awesome i appreciate you being here as well i'm gonna go down the list of questions the same as i did for the others um just feel free to add on or anything else that you want to share with our viewers you are more than happy to but i will start off again with asking how did you get into cyber so i got into cyber security because i wanted a challenge so like after graduating college i graduated with the criminal justice degree so i was like this is not enough like i want to be challenged um i always loved like being a tech person i was always like the go-to tech person in my house so like when something broke i would be like they were like oh my mommy like come here come fix this thing for me so i would go fix it for her and um and i was like i want to do more than just like troubleshooting like i want to actually get to like the nitty-gritty of tech um i i was always scared but i just took that challenge like after school um so that's how i got into cyber security i was like let me do this like hacking seems fun so um that's how i got into cyber security kind of just challenging yourself like i know i can do it thank you it was it was hard at first but i had to just remind myself to keep pushing like you know we all if you're not if you don't feel challenged you're not going to be i think if you don't feel challenged or if you don't feel like you know you're in a comfortable space you're not gonna grow so man you can say that again i i tell my kids that on the daily like never take the easy route right yeah i appreciate that danielle um were there any other important mentors in your life on your journey that brought you to where you are in your career today so of course donnie and the hbcu members that has been helping us alicia lara um so those are the people and also i would like to give a shout out to the black and cyber security like president when i was going through like a tough time in like my master's program and i wanted to give up he took the time out to mentor me for free he helped me go through my lab so i really appreciate him i was gonna give up um but he just challenged me to keep going i'll also have like a couple other mentors but um those are the people who like who who have really been like sticking out during my cyber security career and that's important because it's like you always remember those individuals right like the people that just kind of pushed you and and saw you in another life that maybe you didn't see yourself in at that time right so i think that's important to just keep that in mind that you just never know who you're gonna run into who's going to be there to help you um so i appreciate that what would you what would you say that you learned about yourself during this journey being in the academy um to keep going it's going to be some tough spots where you're like you know balancing um with work and especially if you want to go get a new job so it's just balancing out your time and also having someone um having that community around you to lean on like um one of my during the g fact exam we had i had um i had one of the um pit in one of my peers reach out and we um did our index together we reviewed one on one index and we went over another so we just basically combined using that community um but yeah that's pretty much so i would say because my next question was going to say how important is community involvement but i would i would say that you would say very important is that correct yes very important especially if you don't know something and your parent might know something it's better to um have two minds put together instead of one there you go totally agree with that um what would you say is the most meaningful part of being in this academy um i would go back to the community so let's say if i'm not getting something especially donnie mentioned there earlier so we have someone put together like a zoom meeting so if we having any challenges or anything like that we can hop on that zoom meeting um ask questions so i think um that was like one of the meaningful things during this academy is knowing that i have that community and knowing that i have um people to reach out to when i'm getting when i when i'm stuck and i'm sure you would agree that having that family support is important too do you have some good family support yes um my family my especially my twin sister she always pushes me to just keep going um i always like i always go to at the end of the day and tell her about my day but she always um she always just reminds me like you look how far you came like i remember when you were in your like your master's program and like it was hard for you wanted to give up but you kept pushing so having that family support is super important too but even if you don't have that family support go out and seek other people to like you know lift you up because sometimes you're going to need that lifting up and like you're going to be like it's going to be some days where you're like i just don't get it but like if you have that support system around you it's going to make you feel a whole lot better because you're in a group of alikes and you know you're not alone right yes finally danielle do you have any advice to others um again who you know you know there's going to be tough times what will be your advice to someone who finds themselves kind of stuck uh when the race gets tough what would you advise to them i would advise them to just keep going keep going and even if you do get stuck like reach out to somebody you may not know them but if you reach out to them they are willing to help um i've reached out to a lot of people when they answered me and they they pointed me in the right direction even though if that person doesn't know something they probably know some someone who knows that so reach out to someone don't be afraid to ask questions i think in the cyber security community it's like you're you're really um you're encouraged to answer questions so um to ask questions sorry about that so i think reach out to people and also um look at other learning platforms so you may not get what youtube is saying but you might get what try hackney is saying or hack the box is seeing so just look online at different learning platforms and also don't be afraid to ask questions and think outside the box i i think that was a good point you made you know don't um subject yourself to just one way of learning right like there's multiple avenues and ways for you to learn and just continue to challenge yourself to find the best way that that you learn so i really appreciate you as well danielle for for joining today's live session and anything else you may want to add or advice that you want to give to our viewers this morning um and also go to conferences like jamal said go to conferences and go to different meetups but i think that's about it that would definitely help you expand your network even if you don't know anyone in the cyber security community totally agree with that again i want to thank you for coming in you have definitely provided a meaningful and also detailed perspective from just being in the current current cohort um shout out to delaware state love your shirt uh i am going to go ahead and uh bring in our final guest here we have uh mr justin bishop and justin has attended florida memorial university and has also uh attained his g fax cert how are you doing mr bishop thanks for joining good afternoon everyone thank you for having me i'm doing well hope everybody's doing well also um happy hump day happy hump day happy hump day midway through the week right absolutely awesome well thank you again for joining and like i did with the others i just want to personally congratulate you on your journey where you are so far and being able to get that firsthand cert i know it has not been an easy feat but give yourself a pat on the back because you made it thank you thank you awesome i'll go through my list of questions just as i did the others but again please feel free to add in anything that you believe would be helpful for today's topic of just kind of going beyond academics um so justin how did you get into the cyber industry um i've always been just like the others i've always been interested in the tech um technology uh field um doing things very taking things apart with my hands building them back up um i always said it's either gonna be um a sheriff pilot or a computer engineer um and i did the chef i didn't do the pilot just yet still have those uh plans working just for the private pilot nothing commercial um but now i'm in uh on the journey to the uh cyber security field from teaching um so i actually i have my degree from florida memorial university um shout out to them go lions the only hbcu in south florida which is uh miami gardens florida um management information systems and um from there i went on to teaching so a big shout out to newport news public schools where i was in the cte department at heritage high school working in the governor's stem academy um so uh you know from there um i was afforded some opportunities to work with odu and their uh cyber security program teaching at some summer camps that they offered um to high school students and teachers um and so just working with that just picked my interest even more and um teaching is not a bad teaching's not a bad career don't um you may hear some things about it um but for me myself my personal opinion uh it wasn't it wasn't the kids um it was more so the repetitive uh curriculum although we know in i.t things are constantly changing and we have to keep up with those new um advancements the foundation is pretty much the same so as new students and new our classes came in i was kind of kind of teaching the same thing over and over again like i got a little tired of it i mean just call it what it is um so i felt like i needed to challenge myself i knew that um i'm able to go out there challenge myself give give myself some uh extra work and this is an exciting field um a lot of businesses and organizations are finally taking a look at um securing their data properly making sure um all the information is in a stable environment um so this this field is not going anywhere anytime soon is um growth that is involved in it so i say why not let's break into it now and i'm just so happy to stumble up upon this uh great opportunity with the sans hbcu um immersion academy and uh just threw my name in the hat and i mean my my cohort knows my story uh through my name i didn't expect to to uh get a call back or get a interview i forgot about it for real to be honest um but then when i did get the call on the interview and all that stuff um i'm just glad and and and always showing gratitude that i have this amazing opportunity well thank you justin i mean you said a whole lot first of all i want to go back to being a teacher a pilot a chef a cyber security um engineer and and student i mean you have your hands full and when i tell you you are the definition of challenge yourself i think that that is absolutely wonderful your your story um you know i think it's important to to to just learn a person so just everything that you you mention i think that is just important to know about a person's journey so thank you so much for that sharing all of that background information on you i think that is totally amazing and just dope all at the same time now were there any other mentors besides donnie of course because he is our vip mentor of course of course on your journey that kind of brought you to where you are at in your career today um mentors all across all across not not just in in cyber security but just across life across the board um as everybody else said they want to start naming names to leave somebody out but um all throughout the course of my life i've always been in a place or in in an environment to where i was uh afforded to have um some positive figures role models in and around me whether they were female or male um so i was uh appreciative of that um you know some people are just not placed in those environments to where they can have those mentors and don't know where to go to find them um i was i was glad that i was able to be in the right place at the right time um to be able to be around such good people but um my family family first and foremost they're always pushing me my mom and dad um step dad my stepmom um brothers sisters um all of them you know they they stay on me you know so sometimes i slip up but uh get it together you know we've got some stuff to do so you know family first and foremost family knows your greatness right they're the first ones who see that greatness that's that's amazing um where would you say you find your inspiration when you wake up in the morning knowing i want to be in a better place i tell uh tell tell folks um you know when i was leaving teaching um it's everybody has a way they want to live everybody has a lifestyle that they want to live and achieve um and that's where i am that's my inspiration i know i'm in a spot right now where i'm not in a bad spot um could be worse i know a lot of people would want to be in a position that i'm in right now um but i know it could be a whole lot better and and just putting the studies in and the time in to get to where i need to go within this industry um i know where for me the uh things in life that i want to achieve kind of just betting on yourself and that investing in yourself right yeah it is betting on myself i say that a lot a lot of times to my to my friends i'm betting on myself gambling on myself sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't but if it doesn't you know dust itself off and try again don't stop and don't give up and even in that fact you can't even look at it like it doesn't work because there's always a lesson out of it right absolutely i just had one of those last week don't we all every day um thank you thank you so much uh for that what would you say is your biggest takeaway out of being in in this cohort and having donnie as a mentor what will be your biggest takeaway so far uh the biggest takeaway would be the support the support system from everybody donnie the the cohort members my cohort members the sans um team um just the the support that's provided and available um you know i i may not you probably can't tell now because i'm talking now but i i really don't say too much i like to listen and observe um but when i do need something and i reach out or have a question uh regarding anything whether it's for donnie uh regarding an interview or some salary tips on how to negotiate um whether it's uh a issue with the the platforms which is very rare um or on uh getting registered for the particular course um the turnaround time is is fast you know from what i've experienced so far and everybody's on your side everybody wants to see you succeed you may get random messages of sans team members checking in i appreciate that um the cohort members you know send random messages um you know the the group slack is always good because we're always encouraging it and saying good morning but sometimes you have uh those individual cohort members that you just kind of um gravitate to and kind of kind of uh mess with you know personality wise um that you can talk to on the side as well so i appreciate um all of that the support that's there because um it's a lot of it's a lot of the materials a lot and i'm not even gonna i'm not even gonna play it for me coming in i knew some of this stuff but a lot of stuff i didn't know and it's a lot it takes a lot of time man and we always talk about time management and that's a real thing um so i'm still practicing that as well but we're getting through it we're pushing through that's one thing we're going to do well i see a lot of love in here in the comments and the fact that you're a community leader you're a football coach and and so i it sounds like you you've been able to um figure out that time management with within your community and and again just kind of just focusing on your goals and being able to succeed your gfac while doing all that it's just not an easy feat so again just absolutely tip my hat off to you and appreciate you for just being so candid and sharing your story my my final question to you is do you have any advice to others others who may be watching who want to be in your position right now who say hey i didn't i never knew i would be the one that would be picked i never knew that i would be in this position to be in you know an hbcu academy cohort um but maybe they may be afraid to to move forward what would be your advice to them don't be don't be afraid because this is uh how i teach my students i teach my students um pretty much life is binary it's either yes or no on or off right so um if you don't you'll never know you'll never get that answer um and if you do and it's not the answer you want you can probably go back and clean up whatever you need to clean up to go try again and get the answer that you want so um it's either yes or no and that's what that's how i got into this um i was just on a random facebook group um blacks and information technology and somebody posted the uh the the the application he said hey gopher i read it and i thought to myself first i said nah that's probably not for me that's that's probably not for me and i thought about it so you know what let me just let me just go ahead and do it if it's for me it's going to be for me and if not i can i can probably get some some some uh whatever you call that stuff some feedback and try again because this is a amazing opportunity everybody that's here and maybe folks that are not here and then if you are here these classes these courses aren't um cheap right so i wouldn't be able to do this on my own um so i i'm just glad i went for it and i was able to um achieve it and so i i don't i don't take it for granted sometimes i may i may slow down in the studies a little bit but i know i know what the end goal is and i'm going to keep pushing from there where you seem very humble and um like you're definitely taking uh full advantage of the the scholarship opportunity um as well as the others in in the cohort um and it's just been a pleasure having this conversation i agree with those in the comments that just say your energy is infectious um and i i wish you all the best with your continued success with the cohort um and you know again just thank you so much for joining me today absolutely thank you for having me anytime so there you have it folks over the past almost hour we were able to have a little fun and provide some great info again on just what it is like as in par a part of the actual immersive experience of being a part of our hbcu academy kind of beyond the academics we do have a few minutes to answer any questions that those may have asked um here i don't see any starred questions so i will give you guys just a couple of minutes here if you would like to ask donnie um danielle justin or jamal any specific questions please drop them in the chat box and we would love to answer your questions if you find yourself watching this live or watching this feed after this then you have any other particular questions just please feel free to reach out to myself personally i can be reached at mo bush at sands.org you can also find out more information on our hbc academy at sans.org for slash hbcu we're more than happy we're very open group um just know that there is no such thing as you know a stupid question just ask away um until then i would like to ask you guys to join us next week it will be the last of our three-part series where we will be it is titled finish strong life after the hbcu cyber academy where we will have graduates of the hbcu academies join us and kind of go over their wins they will talk about what they're doing now um and how the cyber academy kind of helped them propel to where they are same time same place would love to have you all here thanks again for joining [Music] you