4 Reasons Why You Should Learn Cybersecurity This Year

We’re proud to offer programs that have a meaningful impact on the career trajectories of our students. We also prefer subjects with clearly demonstrable skill sets, so that there can be no question for employers as to whether or not our grads can do the job.

Our cybersecurity training is no exception. As a student in this program, you’ll graduate job ready, prepared to take the CompTIA Security+ exam and earn an important industry credential.

As you consider a career in the tech field, there are a lot of reasons why you should consider a career in cybersecurity.

Cybersecurity is In Demand—And Growing

There is tremendous demand for cybersecurity professionals worldwide, and there’s a shortage of qualified employees in the field. Across the United States, there are more than 464,000 cybersecurity jobs available, and demand far outpaces the number of available cybersecurity professionals. In fact, it's estimated that employment in the industry will grow 31% by 2029.

Security Is Needed in All Fields and Companies of All Sizes

Chances are, you’ve heard about security breaches at companies you recognize, perhaps even ones you use. In recent years, a number of well-known brands have faced security breaches that exposed their users' names, passwords and credit card numbers. In fact, EA Games and Fujifilm have been attacked in just the past few weeks, and if you’ve had trouble getting gasoline lately, an attack on Colonial Pipeline is to blame.

Cybercrime affects smaller companies, too, and a cyber attack comes with a huge cost, regardless of company size. It's estimated that cybercrime will cost the world $6 trillion annually by 2021. That's $16.4 billion lost every day.

There are other costs to consider. Ransomware attacks result in an average of 16 days of downtime for the attacked company to recover. That number climbs to 50 days to recover from a malware attack.

That means companies of all sizes must stay on top of the rapidly changing world of cybersecurity, creating a constant demand for qualified workers.

Cybersecurity Is A Financially Rewarding Field

In addition to providing the satisfaction of keeping users and their information safe, cybersecurity is also a field that pays well.

The median pay for a cybersecurity role is $103,590 per year in the U.S. Compare that to an average annual wage of $41,950 for all workers across the country!

You Can Use Your Unique Background

You might think that you need to be a "hacker" or that you need to have a long history of working in tech, but cybersecurity offers a wide range of opportunities for people with technical and non-technical backgrounds. In our opinion, the most important skills for aspiring cybersecurity pros are a strong moral compass, analytical thinking skills, curiosity, the ability to learn new technologies quickly and an ability to adapt to rapidly changing needs.

While you will likely need an undergraduate degree if your goal is to work directly for the federal government, when it comes to federal contract positions and non-governmental roles, your certifications, experience and knowledge are often valued more than higher education..

What companies will expect for entry-level roles is a base level of knowledge so that they can teach you any additional skills needed to do the specific job. Those fundamentals are what we will be teaching in class, and we'll spend the last weeks of class preparing you to pass the CompTIA Security+ exam, a key certification that many employers look for when hiring in cybersecurity.

In addition to technical proficiency, hiring managers are looking for these characteristics:

• Problem-solving skills
• Attention to detail
• Communication skills
• An understanding of hacking
• A desire to learn

Not all of these skills can be taught in class, but we will teach you the technical skills you need, including:

• Hardware and operating systems
• Networking fundamentals
• Programming literacy
• Offensive and defensive security operations
• CompTIA Security+ Exam preparation

Launch Your Cybersecurity Career Today

Our first cybersecurity bootcamp kicks off in November 2021, and we’re offering special pricing for this first cohort only. Get started by submitting your application today!