How advise/guide rising 11th grade daughter interested in cybersecurity

Parents Forum
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Was going to post this in 1 of the “Parents of HS Class of ___” threads, but figured it might need its own thread.

D26 is a rising 11th grader (so wrapping up 10th grade this week). She’s really interested in majoring in either Cyber Operations or Intelligence & Information Operations at Univ of Arizona (in-state for us) because, as she put it, “those majors have options which are a mix of US history stuff & tech stuff.”

I’m looking for suggestions on how to advise or guide my kid in terms of extracurricular activities in this area, so am asking the collective of parents out there on CC to weigh in and give me your 2 cents. :slight_smile: Some background about D26 & her school, in case it’s helpful:

  • D26 took AP Computer Science Principles in 9th grade, did well in it, got an A and a 3 on the AP exam.
  • D26 attends a nationally-ranked public charter high school.
  • Our HS does NOT offer AP Computer Science, though. Doesn’t have a teacher available to teach the subject. If they did, D26 absolutely would be taking it next year.
  • DH works in IT. We attempted to have him try to teach D26 how to program in Python, for example, but our family learned that he is not a good instructor. :joy: So that didn’t work well.
  • D26’s HS allows students to start their own clubs, which D26 could absolutely do, but she’s quite introverted and is NOT interested in starting a new club.
  • D26 was on the Robotics team in 8th and 9th grade, but stopped after 9th grade because she hated the mandatory competitions every weekend (got no downtime) and she didn’t get any programming practice or experience.
  • Our HS does not offer DE (dual enrollment) courses with local community colleges.
  • D26 has not taken a programming class anywhere other than some very basic programming that they did a little bit in the AP CSP class.
  • in 10th grade, her extracurriculars were NHS & Mock Trial. She thought Mock Trial was extremely stressful, hated all of the public speaking & feeling like you had to be good at drama (and she’s not a theater kid). Is considering not doing Mock Trial next year.
  • looked up the Python programming classes at our local community college & all of the online-only courses are full for this summer (summer term starts next Tues) and the in-person/hybrid ones conflict w/some other stuff we have going on this summer.
  • the introductory Python programming class at the local community college requires you to take a prereq class 1st, though…topic appears to be in some basic IT sorts of stuff. Ok, so maybe she could take that in the fall and then the Python class next spring.
  • but in 11th grade, she’s got a full load of AP classes (APUSH, AP Calc AB, AP English Lit, AP Spanish, AP Comparative Gov’t, AP Psychology) + honors physics. I think my kid will burn out if taking an additional community college class online at the same time, too.
  • thinking instead of having her do the community college stuff during summer AFTER 11th grade.
  • At some point before she heads off to college, she’ll need foot surgery on both feet (not at same time), so we have to factor that in the mix of school & extracurriculars. Right now, am thinking that the foot surgeries would potentially be during summer after 11th grade. Dr said that recovery for each would be 4-6 weeks & she will need to be completely off the operated-on foot during the 4-6 week recovery period. Therefore, this makes having a part time job at fast food or some retail store difficult.
  • DH also tried about a year and a half ago to just give her a huge Python book and said, “here, read this and let me know if you have questions.” D26 said that she thinks that she probably needs to take a class in it with somebody other than Dad as the teacher. :slight_smile:
  • our HS does not have any cybersecurity clubs or competition teams. Nor are there any faculty who could advise or guide such a club or team. So competing in any of the regional or national high school cybersecurity competitions that require you to compete in a team is not an option.

Open to suggestions or ideas!

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Has she looked into Girls Who Code? They have summer programs and at home projects for all coding levels. .

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Does she need such a narrow focus right now? Seems to me that knowing she thinks cyber/intelligence is cool and interesting is enough for a HS kid.

I think finding a non-stressful way for her to get some programming experience would be great; I don’t think she needs clubs, EC’s, etc. to prove her chops. She’s a strong student, and it seems to me that if she goes down a CS/Cyber route in college and decides she hates it, she’ll be able to pivot to something else without it being traumatic.

What am I missing here?

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I’m also not sure how much ECs one need. Coding might be good to see if she likes it, but most everything I think she can pick up in school.

Younger S majored in Intelligence Analysis at JMU, which sounds similar to the Intelligence & Information Operations at Arizona. With his major, he was required to at least minor in another area. At some point, he tried Data Analytics… One class of coding and he absolutely hated it. He wound up double majoring in Geographic Science.

He never had a single EC in either of those majors. (Ironically, I’ve been heavily involved with GIS since the mid 90s, and he never cared one lick!) But, I will say that both of his majors played into his natural interests. He always loved military history growing up and was super strong in geography - he claims it came from playing FIFA soccer on the XBox. And he is a natural analyst. Always has been, ever since he was a kid. I actually found his program on the JMU website and when I read the course list/descriptions, the major fit him perfectly. I showed him and he agreed. He loved it.

A close childhood friend went into Cybersecurity at an in-state public. I know he never had coding in school either, or any EC related to that. He was a good student, but not like you see here on CC. But following graduation, he is also happily employed.

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The website The Art of Problem Solving (AOPS) has two really good python classes (as well as intensive math classes for kids who really love math). They are offered multiple times a year.

It is an actual class—not self taught.

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Community colleges are not bound by geography. You can register and attend any one within the State.

Many still offer CIS classes online, meaning you can “attend” a school in, say, San Diego without ever step foot on campus.

If one school has pre-req, look around. At our local CC, the programming classes have “recommended” prereq, but none are mandatory.

Community college classes are for the most part, still free to HS students. Absolutely no reason to pay $400-500 for a coding class.

Waitlist for classes do move. If you are within 10% of capacity, you should get in.

HS doesn’t have to “offer” DE enrollment. You just need a person willing to sign off the form for HS student to register in the classes. Apparently that can be anyone with a valid school email.

If she is ambitious enough, there are certificate and AA degrees she can achieve by completing a set of classes.

example:
https://catalog.swccd.edu/associate-degree-certificate-programs/administration-justice/cyber-forensic-as/

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Our area doesn’t have free community college tuition for high school students. Cost per unit is the same regardless of age of the student, so it would be ~$300 per 3-unit class. Our HS doesn’t do any DE at all…your suggestion is a good one to have a person at the HS sign off on it but that’s not something that our HS’s administration will do (my DH already asked about it). They’ve said basically, “You’re welcome to do that on your own if you want.”

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does she need a narrow focus right now? No.

But since she’s got an older sister who just went through the college app process, D26 has been thinking a LOT about the topic over the past several months.

Her #1 favorite subject is US History. More specifically, American war history. So much so that she asked the US History teacher if 1 of the senior capstone class options could be a class about the history of war. :joy:

At the same time, she’s decided that she does NOT want to be a history teacher. Does NOT want to be a history professor. Does NOT want to work for a historical society or in a museum.

She enjoyed her AP CSP class and has asked about learning how to code. She also asked on her own, not prompted by Mom or Dad, how to look up info about different college majors at U of A (doesn’t want to attend ASU or NAU + she’s decided for now that she really wants to stay in AZ for college).

So she & I started poking around and looking stuff up. On a wide variety of majors like:

  • History
  • Law
  • MIS
  • Information Science
  • Cyber Operations
  • Intelligence & Information Operations

She was the most interested in the latter 2 and said, “Maybe I could minor in history or law.” Then looked at the specific classes required for each of those as listed in the course catalog. She read class descriptions, got super pumped at all of the required classes for the latter 2 majors + how some of the sub-specialties w/in each of those 2 included electives in the realm of US History/cyber warfare/civil liberties & cyber security, etc.

Could she change her mind? Absolutely. If/when she changes her mind, is it a big deal? Nope! :slight_smile:

Advise from the counselors at school is generally to do extracurricular stuff that you’re interested in. So far, she’s been proverbially trying on different shoes to see what fits and has figured out what doesn’t fit & what she doesn’t like (hey, that’s half the battle sometimes).

Totally unrelated to cybersecurity, she is planning on applying for a Humane Society volunteer thing this fall (our local Humane Society has a kind of complicated application, you need a letter of rec & have to write an essay & all that) because she wants to learn more about dogs (because she wants to get a dog when she’s out of college).

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I’m sorry to hear that.

I guess that’s the great thing about us going to a school that has zero AP offerings. Our school was super accommodating with our kids taking college classes. They started to sign off S24’s forms before 9th grade started, even though the “requirement” at the time was 10th grade and above.

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So given this, the question is more around how can she find some EC’s she’s excited about- and not how to explore her Cyber/Intelligence curiosity???

The humane society sounds like a great opportunity for a HS kid.

And history majors end up in careers a lot broader than the ones you’ve listed- journalism, public policy, corporate communications, urban planning and restoration, etc. Sounds like she’s at exactly the right stage-- loves some subjects, not interested in others.

Has she read any of the books about the Code-Talkers (Navajo contribution to winning WW2) or other books on similar topics? I’m a sucker for books about Interpol/Mossad/CIA operations- she might find the area fascinating.

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Surprised Basis (right?) doesn’t have a more programming options.

If she really wants to learn python, why not? I can think of worse things to do over the summer.

Many universities offer free intro to programming classes with python. Here’s one that was held earlier. I suspect they will do more next year. If you search YouTube your can find lots of material. Khan Academy has great stuff.

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Non-stressful coding opportunities:

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Has y’all ever watched “Deadliest Warrior?” We spent many hours watching that. :rofl:

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No, but it sounds right up my kid’s alley! :slight_smile:

This all started with her & DH binge-watching a WWII documentary series on Netflix a couple of years ago. And now she’s asking stuff like “What are the electives at College XYZ about WWII stuff?” I told her about how there’s a tour you can go on in London which will take you through Churchill’s war rooms and she about lost her mind. :smiley:

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I lost my mind when I saw the tiny packet of sugar that one of Churchill’s aides carefully saved during rationing. It was found in his desk- decades after the war. So moving.

I love your D!

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It was pretty interesting. Each week, they would take two types of warriors - either historical or more current. They would analyze their weapons, fighting strategies, etc. and at the end, they’d input all the data into a computer and run simulations who would win in a battle.

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How technical (in CS terms) is her interest?

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There is some interesting info on this website:

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If you truly want to be good in cybersecurity and not just the “first level support for the security department where you simply follow a script”, you need a breadth of knowledge all the way down to the fundamental way computers work. For languages you’ll have to know ones most people don’t learn anymore like C and assembler (most of Linux and tons of the Linux ecosystem are in C). Then be pretty good at a lot of other ones such as python, bash, SQL, javascript, etc. and will need to understand how an OS works at it lowest levels.

I roll my eyes at the cybersecurity certificates you can get in 6 or 9 months.

IMO you have to start with a Computer Science degree. Just my $.02.

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I’m not sure. I do know that she’s very clear in that she doesn’t want to do a computer science major because of the 2 yr of college math required at most of those programs.