Women in Cyber Conference Proves How Flexible Tech Can Be

This spring, students and faculty traveled to Washington D.C. to attend this year’s Women in Cybersecurity (WiCyS) Conference. As an international organization — with its own chapter on our campus — WiCyS strives to promote gender diversity in the cybersecurity workforce across the globe, and that pipeline starts here.

Students were able to connect with recruiters and discuss their ongoing projects and capstones. The conference gave students numerous opportunities to network and submit resumes through streamlined applicant portals. There were panels discussing topics ranging from job application support to utilizing AI in the workplace. The free merchandise was also a plus.

Coding a New Community

Tech fields offer numerous opportunities with a lot of flexibility, growth, and learning involved — but when you can’t see yourself in those fields, it’s challenging to have confidence that you’ll make it where you want to go. What events like the WiCyS conference bring to people, especially college students close to starting their own careers, is a level of reassurance that they can achieve their goals no matter who they are or where they come from.

The Student WiCyS Co-President, Computer Networking & Cybersecurity and Digital Forensics double major ʼ27 at Champlain spoke about why she traveled all the way to Washington D.C. “I attended the conference mainly because I love the environment, and I get to meet with a lot of people. I will say their perspective is really interesting, because I have one ideology, which is, ‘Oh, I have to get an internship and then get a full time job.’ But you can see that people have side projects. It’s not just classes and internships. People have home labs and servers, and they’re not coming from the same background. That gives you a different point of view,” she stated.

With an internship and work experience at the Leahy Center under her belt, the WiCyS Co-President credits the agency she is given to choose what she wants to pursue in her education. “We’re given different class choices, and you can tailor that towards what you are interested in. Champlain has actually helped me get an internship because of its connection with NuHarbor. I believe my experiences are more concrete now. Everything I learned in class helped my internships make more sense,” she said.

“Getting to actually work on mock cases and getting to actually work hands-on with different tools has really made me a lot more confident, especially as someone who came into school undecided and just decided to go right into this career with basically no background knowledge at all. I feel like the classes here really do throw you into actually working with things that are industry standard. Getting to learn about stuff like that and actually use it does make me confident when I go to job interviews or when I go to conferences like this, and I’m able to talk with other professionals within the industry,” said Belliveau.

Brown couldn’t express enough how valuable she feels the experience is for students: “Taking students to this conference is always such a joy. It’s always incredible seeing how much they get out of the experience, or to check in with them at meals and hear, ‘Oh, I made this contact with this person here,’ or, ‘I went to this really interesting talk, and I followed up with a speaker afterwards, and now we’re connected on LinkedIn, and I’m excited where this could go.’ It’s just incredible to watch our students really in their element.”

Champlain thrives with students who can bring a wealth of perspectives to the table. Ensuring that women can get hands-on experience only enhances the learning opportunities in the classroom and the development of tech fields as a whole.

“Having diverse opinions and women from diverse backgrounds can really help with figuring out issues. Where someone hasn’t thought a specific way about a problem, someone else can come in from a different angle. It’s so important that people from different backgrounds can have input in all sorts of industries,” said Belliveau.