Vianey Luna is a cybersecurity supervision specialist with a robust educational background, including a bachelor’s degree in journalism and Spanish from the University of Texas at Austin, and a dual master’s degree in public administration from Columbia University and the Herdy School.
She’s currently enhancing her expertise by pursuing a BS in Cybersecurity and information assurance. She holds CompTIA’s Security Plus and Microsoft’s Azure Fundamentals and her cybersecurity proficiency spans system security, network security and risk assessment.
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A summary of the episode
In this episode of the Cybersecurity Guide Podcast, host Steve Bowcut interviews Vianey Luna, a cybersecurity supervision specialist and recent graduate of a cybersecurity bootcamp. The topic of discussion is the pros and cons of an accelerated cybersecurity education versus a traditional university approach.
Luna shares her experience and insights, highlighting the factors that led her to choose a bootcamp over a traditional degree, such as time and cost considerations. She also discusses the rigorous nature of the bootcamp, the importance of self-discipline, and the opportunities that have come her way as a result of her bootcamp education, including job prospects and resume preparation.
Luna advises prospective students to carefully weigh their options and consider their goals and interests before deciding on an educational path. She also emphasizes the importance of continuous learning in the rapidly evolving field of cybersecurity.
A full transcript of the episode
Steve Bowcut:
Thank you for joining us today for the Cybersecurity Guide Podcast. My name is Steve Bowcut. I am a writer and an editor for Cybersecurity Guide and the podcast’s host. We appreciate your listening. Today our guest is Vianey Luna. She’s a cybersecurity supervision specialist and a recent graduate of a cybersecurity bootcamp. The topic for today is we’re going to discuss the pros and cons of an accelerated cybersecurity education versus a more traditional university approach. Vianey is the perfect guest for this topic. I’m going to read her little short bio here and you’ll see why.
So Vianey Luna is a cybersecurity supervision specialist with a robust educational background, including a bachelor’s degree in journalism and Spanish from the University of Texas at Austin, and a dual master’s degree in public administration from Columbia University and the Herdy School. She’s currently enhancing her expertise by pursuing a BS in Cybersecurity and information assurance. She holds CompTIA’s Security Plus and Microsoft’s Azure Fundamentals and her cybersecurity proficiency spans system security, network security and risk assessment. So she has a very robust and well-rounded education, both in a traditional university approach as well as an accelerated approach. So with that, welcome Vianey, thank you for joining me today.
Vianey Luna:
Glad to be here. Thank you for having me.
Steve Bowcut:
All right. We appreciate your time. I think this is going to be a great show. I’ve been looking forward to it for a couple of weeks now. And I think that you’re going to have some valuable insights for our audience, particularly those people in the audience that are thinking about, do I do a bootcamp? Do I just go for the degree? Or maybe they’ll decide to do both like you, but we’ll talk through that. So before we get started with that, I think the audience would really like to learn a little bit more about you. So tell us how you got interested in cybersecurity. How did that happen for you?
Vianey Luna:
Right, so cybersecurity, I first was introduced to the term cybersecurity when I was in grad school. I was actually at the Herdy school and we’re talking about cyber warfare. I thought that was so interesting in how many nation states use cyber as a form, as a cyber warfare tool. And so I thought that was so interesting, although I wasn’t really interested in more of the political policy side, the tech part sounded really fun. But at that time, I think it was early 2010, 2013, around there, there weren’t many programs that provided that education or provided a route to have a career in cybersecurity. So at that moment, I just entertained by using programs like TryHackMe, HackTheBox, so more things on my own until I found something that I wanted to pursue.
Steve Bowcut:
Okay. So you might say relatively late in your academic career then. So your first love, it looks like from your bio that your first love was journalism and teaching and those kinds of things. And so your interest in technology and cybersecurity came after that. Is that correct?
Vianey Luna:
That is correct. I think for me, teaching I realized was more of a passion of mentoring youth and not my career choice. So I learned to distinguish that early on and I can do both now. I just didn’t [inaudible 00:03:45].
Steve Bowcut:
Excellent. There you go. Now you can do it all. That’s awesome. Thank you. All right, so let’s talk a little bit about the decision-making process, and specifically if you could talk to us about how you decided to choose a bootcamp and not necessarily which bootcamp. We’ll talk about the specific selection criteria here in a minute, but how did you decide to choose a bootcamp over just going directly for a more traditional degree? And obviously it’s going to be different for everybody. I guess we should put that out there right up front. We don’t expect that your experience, your life experience is going to be the same as everyone else, but I think it will be interesting to see how that happened for you.
Vianey Luna:
Yes. So there’s two reasons, time and money.
Steve Bowcut:
There you go. For a lot of us, that’s the reasons we do the things we do, right?
Vianey Luna:
Right. And so a more traditional degree would require more money upfront tuition and lucky maybe if you get some scholarship or some government aid. So for me, I would love that, but I wanted to make that transition pretty quickly. And this is where time comes in and I had learned that bootcamps, we were awarded that flexibility so we could complete it on our downtime when we’re not working. We could skip days if we didn’t have the time and more instead where you would see in a traditional more type of schooling that you would have to dedicate a certain amount of time complete by a certain deadline. And at that time, I wanted to continue working full time and only dedicate the time that I could to studying and make that transition. So for me, I decided to go with the bootcamp first. I had heard success stories, so I knew they worked. Yeah, so it took a lot of research, but I eventually landed on the right one.
Steve Bowcut:
Okay. So time and money, which is very common. And for you, it sounds like the time was both… the time investment was two factors really. You wanted to get through the program so you could work in that field as quickly as possible. And you also wanted to keep working while you were doing it, so you needed to not maybe spend all day every day like you would probably do in a university course or at least… And maybe this is just my perception because you’re the expert here, my perception is that an accelerated course probably doesn’t take as many hours out of each, let’s say week than maybe a university course does. Is that even true or maybe it’s the other way around because it accelerated.
Vianey Luna:
That’s correct.
Steve Bowcut:
That is correct. Okay, so you could work full-time fairly comfortably, at least in your case, you could work full-time and do the accelerated bootcamp and get through it much faster than you would’ve if you decided to go get a bachelor’s degree first thing. Okay. And we haven’t talked about it yet. So which bootcamp did you choose?
Vianey Luna:
I chose the Springboard Bootcamp, actually the teacher next door, my neighbor was doing that bootcamp, but she was doing it for software engineering and she introduced them to me. So I was already looking at some, and it was just a funny coincidence that she was actually pursuing a tech career as well. But I looked at them and they had just added the cybersecurity bootcamp, which was just also really funny. And it was just an amazing choice for me. It offered the flexibility. They had a tiny scholarship that they gave me, but hey, I’ll take anything for women in tech. And what I liked about them is that they offered a wholesome approach to their program. So career coaching, TAs, and we had access to our cohort. So those were the determining factors and the time of course.
Steve Bowcut:
Sure. Okay, all right. So it sounds like you did look at other programs, or at least peripherally you looked at what other programs may offer, and Springboard is the one that worked best for your particular situation. And this is not really an endorsement of that particular program, but I’m glad that it worked for you. But there are lots of programs out there, and for other individuals they may find it a different program. Although I like that somebody you knew and trusted was doing that. You certainly don’t want to overlook that.
Vianey Luna:
Exactly.
Steve Bowcut:
All of the bootcamps out there could be confusing trying to pick which one you want to pick. But if you know somebody that you respect and they’re already done or are doing one, that’s a great endorsement. All right, so let’s talk about how it worked out for you a little bit. So you obviously had something in your mind, you had some expectation and then compare that, if you will, against the reality. So how did it work out? Was it what you expected it to be?
Vianey Luna:
Yes and no. It was a lot more difficult than I thought it would be because I had-
Steve Bowcut:
Was it? Okay.
Vianey Luna:
Yes, I had no tech skills. I mean, I use a computer, but not any cyber tech skills, not hands-on skills. So again, I was a little frightened because I was like, “Oh, it’s an accelerated program, will I learn everything I need to learn?” So that was interesting. I think the most surprising factor that I came upon, and most students will, is a lot of it is up to the student. So if anything, there’s no effort put into it, you’re going to complete the program, but you’ll have nothing to show for it. So as much as you invest is what you will receive in return. I learned that early on, thanks to my friend. And I made it the best I could, the best opportunity I could, and it helped me out tremendously. I got to meet incredible people, I learned a lot and got a job, so it worked out.
Steve Bowcut:
That is awesome. All right, so there are concerns that when I talk to people in the industry about cybersecurity education, in any form there are different concerns. And one of them is going to be as you’ve described, that that learning experience is going to be too rigorous. So maybe you could give us an idea, and I know there again, this is, it’s not a terribly fair question only because it’s going to vary from each person. And like you said, you came to it with very little technical background. And so you may have spent more hours trying to catch up where someone who’s been working in a tech field or maybe even working in cybersecurity for a number of years may not have to put that much. Can you give us a sense for how rigorous was it, how many hours a day or a week or did it dominate your life for a period of time? Or was it just something you could spend a couple of hours in the evenings or on the weekends? How did that work for you?
Vianey Luna:
Right. So the program at that time was six months. So they said, “It’s up to you, as long as you complete it in six months.” And so they have this little timer thing where I set it to 11 hours per week.
Steve Bowcut:
Oh, okay.
Vianey Luna:
Sometimes I could do more, but minimum 11 hours. So I put my timer on the program that I was going to do minimum 11 hours, and I would dedicate my time to that, and I made sure I did. I could do more if I had the time, but at least that amount of time per week. So that’s how I did it. And yes, it’s time intensive, especially if there are certain parts that you don’t understand. For example, network security was very difficult, but now it’s one of my favorite things.
Steve Bowcut:
Really? Okay.
Vianey Luna:
Yeah, it obviously depends on how much time also you want to focus on each area of the security that they offer.
Steve Bowcut:
Yeah, so it’s completely self-paced, which is a good thing. It’s very flexible. But the other side of that coin might be how do you get interaction with peers, other people taking the class or the instructor? I mean, was there a sufficient interaction for you, and did you lean on that quite a bit or were you just… Because you sound to me you’re pretty self-disciplined, right? 11 hours a week minimum, that’s what I’m going to do and you stick with it. But how about that interaction with others, both the instructors and/or peers? How did that work?
Vianey Luna:
So the best they tried to accommodate that with is they offered a mentor that we saw every week, that was required. So we would spend time with them talking about our coursework, our career objectives. We also had a career coach. The cohort, we had a Slack group, if I’m correct, we had a group where we would talk to each other and just kind of rely on each other in case we had questions. However, that was not mandatory. So if I did not want to talk to anyone, I didn’t have to, which is for an introvert like me, I was okay sometimes. But I think that it doesn’t force you to do that. So if someone that is an introvert like me, that you don’t gain those relationships that you probably would in the classroom. I think that’s also an important factor to consider if that is important to you. Maybe that’s not the best choice, but the options are there to connect. And you do group work of some.
Steve Bowcut:
Oh, you do?
Vianey Luna:
Yes, we do group work. I think there are a few projects that we do group work, but again, you could just… it’s all online and up to the group itself. But you don’t see them like you where in chosen a classroom. But I guess it would be online classes nowadays, right? Same-
Steve Bowcut:
Which have become quite popular. I mean, there’s an awful lot of those around. Okay, so that’s interesting. So there was some group work. So its self-paced but if you’re involved in a group, then you’re going to go the speed of the group, at least for those portions, those sections that you’re working with the group on. So that would kind of dictate how quickly you’re moving through it, I suppose.
Vianey Luna:
Yes.
Steve Bowcut:
All right. So let’s focus a little bit on how that worked for you. So post bootcamp opportunities, what have you seen that that has done for you? And I know you’re quite well-educated, so it’s probably hard for you to say, “Well, this particular bootcamp brought these opportunities.” Because you’re educated in other ways as well. But can you identify for the audience what opportunities may have come your way because of the bootcamp?
Vianey Luna:
Yes. So even though I do have a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree, most organizations do not care if you do not have the technical skills. There are some organizations that hire without a bachelor’s degree. There’s these, I don’t know, cyber ninjas that somehow get through life without having to have the education, but they do have that background and interest and manage to get these cyber jobs. So the most important part are the skills. And so the bootcamp introduced me to groups, organizations, they introduced me to this necessary skills to find a job and also helped me with my resume, to tailor it for a tech job, which is very tricky out there.
Resumes are all gathered through their computer systems and filtered out by looking through certain words. And so they made sure we were fully prepared to have our resumes given to these tech companies or cyber organizations. So because of that and my knowledge of cyber, I was able to then apply, actually my first job was through LinkedIn and a recruiter reached out and I had tailored my LinkedIn page according to Springboard’s guidelines. So they knew what was hot at that time or even now. And so I made sure that it was fully ready for a recruit to come get me, and they did. So that was actually really interesting. Yeah.
Steve Bowcut:
Awesome, okay. Well that’s encouraging to me. So I hadn’t really thought of bootcamps as having that aspect at all. More a university type education, you’re going to take classes on how to find a job and how to put your resume together and all of that. So I guess in my mind I thought, “Well, these bootcamps probably don’t take the time to do that because it’s so intensive and it’s fast-paced and they probably figure you’re going to have to get that education on your own.” But at least in your case, that was a big part of your success is learning how to get the job that you’ve been trained to do, right?
Vianey Luna:
Yes, correct. And we were also had to do exit interviews, which mimicked the interviews for a job. And I would say they were way harder-
Steve Bowcut:
Yeah, really?
Vianey Luna:
… my job interviews. So I think a lot of these bootcamps know that they’re competing with these universities and they have to offer some of these opportunities for students to take advantage of.
Steve Bowcut:
Well, that’s cool. I didn’t realize that. All right, so let’s extract from you some advice. So advice for perspective students. Do you have anything that you would like to offer our audience, people who are thinking about bootcamp versus a traditional university approach? What would you tell them?
Vianey Luna:
I think first that the career transition or just joining cybersecurity in general or any tech career, it’s very necessary to be fully dedicated to it. So for example, for me, I’m currently in Western Governor’s University, if I would’ve started then, it is a full-time commitment. It would take semesters for me to graduate. And that’s not something that should be taken lighthearted. Also as well, the tuition and time, there must be time and money dedicated to going to school. Even though a bootcamp, it’s a little bit more lenient in time, it still costs money, right? And so just outweigh both of them and see which is better for the individual, what skill they would like to gain, how they would like to receive those classes or that information is very important.
But also it all depends on the person and how much they want to gain from the experience. I thought many students go into these bootcamps and think, “I’m going to complete the bootcamp and get a job.” And that’s not the case. If you don’t have that extra drive to learn more about a topic, to gain those certifications during the bootcamp or to even approach a career coach to help you with your resume, there’s just no way. And employers will see right through that. “Great, you completed a bootcamp, but what do you really know? Do you really like cybersecurity? What have you done so far to show us that you actually really want to pursue this career?”
Steve Bowcut:
That sounds like great advice. Thank you, I appreciate that. So given the exposure you’ve had now, and obviously this is just going to be your opinion, there’s no way for you to know this. But would you suggest that we’ll see an increase of people entering the workforce that have their cybersecurity education basically from a bootcamp? Or do you think maybe that’s seen its apex and it’s declining? What do you think?
Vianey Luna:
That’s a good question. I’ve actually, most of the people in my network, for example, LinkedIn have gone not the traditional route. So they kind of do their formal education after they do their certificates or a bootcamp or self-taught. And now I can have the money to actually pursue a degree. And a lot of these employers recognize that. And so then they offer also to pay for that to degree when you start working. But from what I have seen is, did they start off with a non-traditional route? And I feel like that’s going to be as the need increases for these cybersecurity analysts or any entry position, that just as long as people have these skills, that’s good enough.
Steve Bowcut:
Yeah, interesting. So maybe the bootcamp that you chose, the Springboard, maybe their choice of a name was pretty good, right? So it’s really just a Springboard to get you into the industry. So now your work, but it’s not the end all, be all of your cybersecurity education, it’s just the Springboard that gets you your first job in the industry. Now you start to get some experience and then if you’re a VNA, you go back and get more education as well. So speaking of that, what does the future look like for you? Do you have any additional goals? I know you’re working on a BS now. Do you see any more advanced degrees in cybersecurity or you think you’re done with education?
Vianey Luna:
Oh no, I was a teacher first, so I will always be learning.
Steve Bowcut:
Always be. I somehow knew that was going to be your answer.
Vianey Luna:
Yes, I love learning and cybersecurity is constantly evolving, so much. You know something one day and something new pops up the next day. And so in order to really have your pulse on the industry, you have to keep learning. For me right now, I’m focusing on then my university, finishing that degree, getting my certs. I’m really interested in cloud technology, so I’m leaning more towards the CSSP kind of certifications. And then once I’m done with that, if I have more interest in cyber, then I’ll join… a specific interest in cyber, then I’ll consider a graduate degree, another one.
Steve Bowcut:
Another one, right?
Vianey Luna:
Another one. But so far, in terms of education, that’s what I would like to achieve.
Steve Bowcut:
That’s awesome. All right, well that’s all I have. So thank you so much for spending time with us today. I think this is going to be an invaluable resource for people who are considering an accelerator program versus a university program. At least they’re going to have some insights to both sides of that. So thank you for spending time with us today.
Vianey Luna:
No, thank you for having me. I had fun.
Steve Bowcut:
And a big thanks to our listeners for being with us. And please remember to subscribe and review if you find this podcast interesting. And join us next time for another episode of the Cybersecurity Guide Podcast.