Experience in CyberPatriot

During my senior year of high school, I joined a class that enabled students to participate in CyberPatriot competitions hosted by the Air Force Association. In a way, this class became an extracurricular activity since the team would hold meetings outside of class and much time was devoted to research. This competition gave students the opportunity to become involved in a national competition, which enabled students to apply their cybersecurity skills to a real world setting. For about eight hours, students needed to figure out and fix a number of vulnerabilities to protect their “computer system” on a virtual machine every competition (4 total). The types of operating systems we worked with were the Windows, Windows Server, and Linux.

My team, named CyberLancers after our mascot Joan of Arc, consisted of six students all with limited knowledge of cybersecurity. For the entirety of the competition, I was tasked with learning the Linux OS because no one on the team was familiar with this operating system. Eventually, I was the only person on the team who acquired basic knowledge of Linux; however, information on Linux was limited at the time, which meant I was not able to know everything about Linux. After the last competition, every member in the team was given a certificate for their participation.

The time I spent with this team taught me the value of work ethic, teamwork, and gave me a taste of how to research effectively. Also, I was able to become familiar with Linux, which became valuable knowledge as I was using Unix. Being familiar with another operating system besides Windows opened my eyes to a different side of software.