Mastodawn

May 1, 2023

I have to let you all in on something.

At this point in my career I’m privileged to mentor a lot of young people, especially veterans and college students. And every so often they’re like really excited to meet me and say they would like to be like me. This totally blows my mind because they go to like MIT, Stanford, or Purdue ….and they’re usually in the second year of a PHD and they run their cybersecurity competition team and speak 9 languages or something….

I was a TERRIBLE youth. Yea, I eventually went to DePaul which is respectable and I have three okay undergrad degrees - merely because I had no choice but to enlist at 17 and the military kicked the crap out of me. I went to community college first the hard way around. I almost didn’t graduate from high school. I was a miserable, unhappy, uncool gnc goth kid who hacked computers and swore a lot. Those schools would have .blown their noses at my application and probably banned me from the campus for being a delinquent.

What I want to say is if you’re one of those rock star young people, I’m super impressed by you, and you’ve picked one hell of a role model. Keep it up, and don’t burn out.

If you’re that totally screwed up teenager, though, I might not get to see you at awards ceremonies and touted by the top professors at cons, but you can make it too. Even if nobody is ever in your corner.

Show thread

Johnnie O! | Infosec Hack May 1, 2023

@hacks4pancakes
FWIW, I was a high school fuck-up. Barely graduated HS, but tested so high that I got into a good college. Lots of factors made sure that didn't work out well, but a big one was me. Worked as a chef, nightclub bartender, doorman, and scrounged for rent for years. Worked for several failed startups in sysadmin, networking, etc. until I landed with you ne'er-do-wells.

For those of you who know what you want in college and go straight into it, I laud you! For the rest of us, it's totally possible and bringing different perspectives and life experiences into Security definitely has their benefits.

Show thread

Locksmith

@johnnie @hacks4pancakes I was always a good student, but at the end of HS, I was fed up. Wanted to work and not college life, then I went into commerce. I spent a decade in that career, but I always felt I was missing something. I read, studied a lot, but I wanted more math. More science. Academia was missing from me... I finally went back to college at almost 30, electronics engineering.
I was so eager that I basically devoured the course. I read the textbooks, and then the additional textbooks. I would ask the professors for extra material and would discuss the subjects with them after class. They enjoyed it. Aced it all. The university hired me as adjunct right after graduation, and I went straight to Masters. And after Masters, I went straight to PhD.
A more interesting story is that of my wife (whom I met at Masters), who went along with me and finished her PhD before me, concomitant with having a job and a newborn.