USD CyberSecurity Graduate Engineering Program Receives National Award
The University of San Diego recently joined a select group of schools in California when the Shiley-Marcos School of Engineering’s (SMSE) CyberSecurity Engineering graduate program was designated as a National Center for Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense (NCAE-CD) by the National Security Agency’s (NSA) National Cryptologic School and federal partners.
The rigorous, year-long application process was spearheaded by Chuck Bane, who revamped the Master of Science in CyberSecurity Engineering curriculum and serves as its director and a professor of practice. He had the help and support of Mark Heckman, also a professor of practice, and Mark Castellano, who manages community engagement for the school’s engineering and technology programs.
“It’s a two-step process. The first was validating the curriculum itself and the credentials of all the instructors,” Bane says. “The second was the requirement to show proof that we actually practice what we teach. And that we have an outreach program that works with other curriculums across campus.” The group also had to submit evidence of outreach efforts outside the university, such as summer camps and corporate training events, and to solicit input from university faculty and students as well as an advisory council whose members are key players in San Diego’s cyber community.
“This is a designation that anyone who has a cybersecurity program desires,” says Shiley-Marcos School of Engineering Dean Chell Roberts. “It means you have arrived. That the program has been vetted not only by us and the community, but by security agencies of the United States federal government.” It also opens the door to valuable scholarships and enhances job opportunities that otherwise would not be accessible to students, including the federal CyberCorps Scholarships for Service program, which covers tuition in return for a limited commitment to work for the U.S. government.
“When students are looking at schools, how do they judge the quality of a program? There’s no national or international standard for deciding whether one school is better than another,” says Heckman. “So the designation is one way of differentiating us. The NCAE designation means that our program has been certified by the NSA, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)/National Initiative on Cybersecurity Education (NICE), the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Department of Defense Office of the Chief Information Officer (DoD-CIO) and U.S. Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM) as meeting a certain level of rigor in our curriculum. That helps us with recruitment and it helps students find jobs afterwards.”
Ch’ree Hagens ‘22 (MSCSE) had already found a job before the designation was awarded but she says she knew it was coming and is richly deserved. A former Marine who worked in systems administration and security, she now has a job as a navigational systems engineer with a DOD contractor in Anaheim. “USD has an excellent cyber engineering program. This will help put us out there at the forefront. The cybersecurity field is hurting and we need more good people.” And even without the NCAE designation, Hagens says the master’s definitely eased her path to employment in a demanding and competitive area. “I’m working a lot with systems that support DOD and one of our key responsibilities is to make sure that classified information isn’t spilled.”
In order to prepare people like Hagens for the real world, Bane designed a program that can be attended online or on campus. Classes are held with full-time workers in mind, because a good number of students are looking to change careers, or acquire new skills that can help them move ahead in their current jobs. A technical background is a big plus, but it’s not an absolute requirement. “When I interview people who don’t have technical backgrounds, I tell them yeah, they can do the work, but they’ve got to go out and do a lot of it on their own,” Bane says. “Class is not going to slow down for them.”
Shaswati Das, a full-time business analyst and parent, learned that from personal experience. She wanted to move from finance into a more technical sphere and because she lacked the necessary background, she spent a full semester taking a fundamentals prerequisite, CYBR 505, which she chose to do online. Now she’s on campus and Das says although the work has been very challenging, she remains confident she made the right choice. “The classes are small, the professors and students have a good connection,” she says. “I’m learning a lot.” But she also has some advice for prospective students. “Try to get as much prior knowledge of the basic tools as you can. If it takes you an extra six months, it’s worth it.”
Those who do enroll are treated to a carefully crafted learning experience that’s available at few – if any – other schools in the country. “Too many master’s programs simply train students to pass certification examinations,” Heckman says. “But then they won’t know all the places that weaknesses can creep into a system at every stage of the system development lifecycle.” That’s where this systems engineering-oriented program stands out. “From the time you think of building it, to the time you actually build it. How do you test it? How do you monitor it to make sure it maintains security? These concepts were explicitly built into our program.”
To showcase what they’ve learned and test their knowledge just prior to graduation, students confront and address thorny business IT security scenarios as part of a capstone course. It’s another aspect of the program that sets it apart. “They’ve put a lot of time and effort into reinventing the program,” says Anthony Wilkinson ‘19 (MSCSE), who completed his degree before Bane redesigned things. “The NCAE designation gives them validity. It says they have good content that’s going to accelerate your career, instead of just filling you with useless knowledge that you can’t take into the real world and apply.”
— Karen Gross