Welcome to NOVA’s Cybersecurity Blog! We’ll use this to post interesting articles and advice to students, faculty (and the community, at large).  To give you just some brief background on NOVA’s Cybersecurity Program, NOVA has had a Cybersecurity (originally named Network Security) Career Studies Certificate (CSC) in place since 2001. In fact, we were one of the first community colleges to have a cybersecurity program in the country!  This original CSC was actually a 3-year cert, meaning that the student already had a degree and/or experience with networking. Over time, this grew and morphed into our present program – the Cyberscurity CSC and Applied Associate of Science (AAS)  in Cybersecurity.  What is great about this AAS Cybersecurity degree is that it is an “applied” degree, meaning that it is designed to instill hard skills that the student can put into immediate practice in the workplace. It has 49 IT credits, in fact. This makes it an ideal degree for students who already have a degree, but perhaps in an unrelated discipline – such as History –  and now wants to transition into a Cyber career. For those of you who are just starting out, it also transfers to four senior institutions in our area!  These are:  George Mason University’s new Bachelor’s of Applied Science (BAS) that accepts this degree in full (with the addition of 2 security courses), George Washington University College of Professional Studies BS degree, UMUC’s Computer Network and Security (NAS) BS degree, and Marymount University’s BSIT. The latter offers our students the opportunity to compete for a full-ride Scholarship for Service (SFS) that provides a full-ride (fully paid for) two-years at Marymount – plus a guarantee of a job with the Federal government upon graduation (restrictions apply, of course, so check with your faculty member on this). Each of these degree programs have some very specific requirements or desires for the electives in our program so each student completing the AAS Cybersecurity is asked to refer to the Advising Sheet that our faculty can provide to help ensure you are on the right track, taking the right courses, to maximize your time with us. Our program is also a Center of Academic Excellence for Two-Year institutions (CAE2Y) as designated by the National Security Agency and Dept. of Homeland Security. This means that our curriculum implements these government cybersecurity educational standards and our faculty and program meet stringent program requirements. Also, as a founding member of the National Cyberwatch Center, we are able to offer our students a wealth of competition opportunities (I’ll discuss that in additional blogs). Its an exciting time to be in Cybesecurity!  See you soon — Regards, Dr. Leary