Cyber Security
Human Centric Security
I By Emily Major-Goldsmith
feel so passionately about what I am about to ask you as the reader to consider in my article below. I feel passionately because it is my premise that the educational context provided for cyber security students here in Australia is compromising the opportunities of the very same students it openly wants to encourage into the industry. As a child you are told to 'dream big' when it comes to everything you do! The intent is to help support the idea that someone can achieve anything if they put their mind to it. Most adolescents become more aware of the limitations and restrictions that compromise this notion. And so, in our childhood years the wish to become a hotdog or a unicorn is soon replaced with more realistic longer-term career options such as doctor, teacher, chef and so on. As a young adult you decide on a pathway post tertiary education, whether that be to attend university, TAFE or the workforce. Regardless of what you decide, you are choosing a direction, a subject area, a way of life, a career pathway. If you decide University is for you, your first decision is to choose a subject area. For most degrees, you are generally presented with a few options. Perhaps to focus on a core subject area or maybe certain electives or major and minor study preferences. Sadly, this option to specialise within a particular domain within a certain field isn’t necessarily available for all areas of study. The beauty of offering Major's, Minor's and even elective units, is that you allow the student to specialise in a particular part of a subject area. It allows students to take interest in smaller more niche subjects, within their learning area and can enhance opportunities to attract a more diverse range of
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students to a career pathway. When a student is studying at university to become a doctor, they often begin their first few years learning some core, fundamental subjects. Thereafter, once base knowledge is embedded, the student is then able to specialise and make selections such as paediatrics, oncology, cardiology and so on. When a student is studying at university to become a teacher, again they have to complete base knowledge education units. However, alongside these units they can choose a major and a minor - two subjects that they wish to specialise in, such as Mathematics, English, Humanities or the Sciences. When a student is studying at university to become an engineer, they too complete base knowledge education units. After this they can specialise as a chemical engineer, mechanical engineer or computer engineer. But decide to study cyber security and interestingly this educational format is not the same. Cyber students, certainly at my university don’t get that same option to specialise. A cyber degree is focused on a very technicallyoriented curriculum, throughout the course. Of course, the technical elements are an important part of a cyber security education, but they are not the only part. For some students this is very challenging, as the technical aspects are not necessarily aligned to their skill set and certainly does little to support an ongoing enjoyment of the subject area for many. The net result of this is that many just don’t make it to the end of the university degree. Subjects such as ethical hacking, various forms of programming
