looking for college

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sharpie

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Jun 10, 2006
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hello im a 16 year old junior in highschool and im looking for colleges. The majors that i want to take is network security and ethical hacking. So if anyone has any ideas on what i should pursue please post.

thanks
 
Uh, I don't think any real uni is going to offer a specific degree titled "Network Security" or "Ethical Hacker"... most schools seem to offer a Computer Science degree with specializations (which would include something along the lines of network security). I do believe that the University of Central Florida offers a forensics program for undergraduates, and theres a bunch of other schools out there with security minded programs (Google-fu it).

What you might want to be asking yourself at this stage is whether you want say, a full bachelors degree or whether you just want to get specific training/certification. A full bachelors degree will include general ed courses and all sorts of computer sciency goodness (Data Structures, A.I., algorithms, compilers/languages, hardware design seem to be popular choices for required courses).

If say you decide to go bachelors, and you don't get into any schools/programs that offer a specific network security course it isn't like everything is lost. Just take everything the school offers and soak up as much as you can elsewhere. My school doesn't offer anything beyond a single security course and 2 networking classes but I've still managed to pick up a lot from books I've purchased and just toying around with security minded tools (OpenBSD, Gentoo-hardened, ethereal/nasm/etc). If your truly interested, I would totally suggest trying your hardest to hit up any security conference you can (SELinux symposium, Defcon/Blackhat, Toorcon, Crypto, etc).

Feel free to post any questions you have.
 
hokatichenci -

BS in Network Technologies
Currently enrolled in MS Network Security program at same school.

And to echo the 2nd poster the school is NSA cert'ed school of excellence.
 
Malk-a-mite said:
hokatichenci -

BS in Network Technologies
Currently enrolled in MS Network Security program at same school.
Click to expand...

Never heard of any schools that offered that. What school do you go to?
 
sharpie said:
The majors that i want to take is network security and ethical hacking.
Click to expand...
Since when is "ethical hacking" a recognized major? :rolleyes:

But good luck, and I hope wherever you land, they require you to take some English classes. I know little things like capitalization and verb/noun agreement may seem trivial in this age of "text speak", but I can assure you that a good command of the written word can't hurt you and may just give you an edge in the job world. ;)
 
Lethal said:
Since when is "ethical hacking" a recognized major? :rolleyes:

But good luck, and I hope wherever you land, they require you to take some English classes. I know little things like capitalization and verb/noun agreement may seem trivial in this age of "text speak", but I can assure you that a good command of the written word can't hurt you and may just give you an edge in the job world. ;)
Click to expand...

I agree...you probably wont find a major in Ethical Hacking. To be able to "hack", you need to understand the principles taught in Computer Science and you need to how networks work. If one were to study CS and take some networking and security classes, one should learn enough in those courses to be able to figure out how to "hack". Of course, there may be some universities out there that offer "ethical hacking" as a special topics course.
 
Thank-you for your help. I think that I'm going to go for network security but i don't know what college yet and I'm going to do certifications like my EHC
 
RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology) in Rochester, NY has a B.S. in Applied Networking and Systems Administration through their Networking, Security, and Systems Administration department. They don't specialize in hacking per se, but they do have various security courses for things like wireless technologies, so I imagine you would have to learn how to "hack" to test for security. That last bit is speculative though. I only did my B.S. in Information Technology with a focus primarily in web design.

Oh, and the Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences does offer an ethics class, but it's not really deep or anything. Just understanding different viewpoints. We didn't even touch hacking if I remember correctly....

Good luck in your search.
 
check out SRA at PSU. I am in IST at Penn State but they have a new major in security and risk analysis. If the track record for IST is any proof this should be a great major. Not to mention you get to go to school at PSU at the IST college, which is amazing lol.

SRA

Info on SRA is in the undergrad section of the IST site.
 
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