In this episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond, Bart talks about his job as a cybersecurity specialist. We get a bit silly in our early part of the chat, the reasons for which will become obvious when you listen to the beginning but he successfully gives a flavor of what “a day in the life” is like for him.
Read an unedited, auto-generated transcript with chapter marks: CCATP_2024_12_29
Notes on the Discussion from Bart
Events conspired to make this conversation seem like the perfect fit right now.
Firstly, I’m approaching the second year anniversary of my new role at work. It was in late November 2022 that I became Maynooth University’s Cybersecurity Specialist. The role was brand new, and no one quite knew what exactly it would develop into, least of all me, but two years on I’m settled in, and the role has crystallised.
Secondly, it was just a few weeks ago that I spent some time reflecting on my role and condensing it into a handful of reminder slides for a conversation I was asked to have with some work experience students spending some time with the university. These were teenagers considering a career in IT and in their transition year (as it’s officially known in the Irish education system.) The transition year is between the first, most general, stage of their secondary school education, and the second, more focused stage, when they’ve had to make decisions on which subjects to continue with, and which to drop.
Thirdly, this was the week of the annual HEAnet conference which is the Higher Education sector IT conference for Ireland. If it involves IT and colleges or universities, the HEAnet conference is probably a great venue for it! The closing day featured two important cybersecurity plenary talks, one with the head of the CyberIreland industry group, and one with the head of Ireland National Cyber Security Center (NCSC, the Irish equivalent to CISA in the US). Both stressed the importance of outreach to young people because we’re going to need a lot more cybersecurity experts in the coming years and decades!
And finally, some minor surgery has necessitated stronger painkillers than I’m used to, and they’re really messing with my mental capacities. We decided to postpone our planned instalment of Programming by Stealth, and record a lite chit chat instead.
So, myself and Allison will chat about what it’s like to be a Cybersecurity Specialist in 2024, and we’ll use my mnemonic slide deck from my chat with the transition year students as our guide.
The Slides were never created with the intent of being presented as a lecture, they were only ever intended to guide a conversation, so bear that in mind when you read them 🙂