If I was just graduating high school or deciding how to get started in cybersecurity, knowing what I know now, I wouldn’t ever consider a program that didn’t teach cloud skills (few of them do). By the time I would graduate, everything I learned would be obsolete. Within the next five years, most companies will have finished their migration to the cloud or at least close to it, or even just beginning on it; its the focus. This it Should Cybersecurity Degree Programs Have a Cloud Focus?
Cloud skills are so difficult to teach because they change rapidly. Institutions have no way to keep their curriculum up to date. I have a cloud course and I’ve already had to go through and keep it updated. It changes so much that I put the year it was last updated in the title, just so that everyone knows its still relevant. Its super easy to update a course on a website or Udemy. Record a module and bam upload it. But updating a college course or program with students enrolled in it, that have all these accreditation requirements, has to be carefully planned and executed and by the time it all happens it needs to be updated again.
If it doesn’t get easier to train for cloud skills, its perhaps the end of degree requirements for IT all together. Microsoft and AWS have the same problem. They need people trained on their platforms too and they know how difficult it is to do so they’re doing it themselves.
I’ve taken some of the Microsoft Azure training and I liked it.
It all works! That so hard to do. They keep it updated but the content is limited. Its not comprehensive by a long stretch.
There are so many cloud fundamentals to learn that aren’t vendor specific that universities aren’t teaching. They could cover cloud fundamentals in one semester but they don’t.
If you’re just starting out, I wouldn’t consider any program that didn’t teach you the cloud. And I mean it. Don’t do it. You’re probably going to get your degree and you’re not going to be able to find a job. Any program thats teaching you infrastructure or perimeter defense is obsolete by the time you graduate. It was a waste of your time and money (and you have to pay that back!)
Tyler Wall is the founder of Cyber NOW Education. He holds bills for a Master of Science from Purdue University and CISSP, CCSK, CFSR, CEH, Sec+, Net+, and A+ certifications. He mastered the SOC after having held every position from analyst to architect and is the author of three books, 100+ professional articles, and ten online courses specifically for SOC analysts.
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