Augusta University has partnered with the University of West Florida (UWF) to host a CyberSkills2Work program in Augusta.
CyberSkills2Work is a national cybersecurity workforce development program designed to recruit, prepare and place transitioning military, first responders and veterans into cybersecurity roles across the U.S. The program is funded by the National Security Agency and is provided at no cost to eligible participants, per the CyberSkills2Work website.
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Dr. Michael Nowatkowski, head of AU’s Cyber Program of Study, is leading the program session. He is involved with the administrative side and is also teaching a number of the courses.
“We’ve had about 15 applicants for the program in the past two weeks,” Nowatkowski said.
The capacity for this year’s session is 20 applicants.
“Word is getting out and momentum is building,” he said. “We’ll be able to have about 25 students for next academic year’s session, and this is all part of the national cyber workforce program that’s led by the University of West Florida.
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University of West Florida is the lead school on the entire consortium, which is made up of 10 universities, Nowatkowski said.
“There’s a website called CyberSeek and they list the number of cybersecurity job openings in the U.S.,” he said. “There are over 500,000 job openings. And there are a lot of openings in the government sector, trying to protect our national infrastructure. This program is trying to bring in people transitioning from one career of service to another career of service. That focus is on people transitioning from the military, veterans and first responders.”
Nowatkowski said the main reason the program is currently limited to military or first responder personnel is that those people are coming from a proven work record and can experience an easier transition to the cybersecurity workforce as opposed to an “unknown quantity” like applicants fresh out of high school or college, coming from unrelated fields.
However, Nowatkowski said there are several programs aimed at high schools students that have been available for several years. One of those programs is the Gen Cyber Camp, which is for rising 11th and 12th graders and takes place at the end of June annually.
The University of West Florida reached out to several schools that are part of National Centers for Academic Excellence community, an NSA-led certification process that highlights key cybersecurity programs across the country, according to Nowatkowski. West Florida found AU through that community.
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“Many of the cybersecurity courses offered in the program already exist within the host schools in some form,” Nowatkowski said. “This just opens those programs up to students that may not have applied for them before, incentivizing them through scholarship.”
Nowatkowski said they approached Fort Gordon’s Soldier For Life Transition Assistance Program, an office that transitioning military personnel go through to guide their post-service work career. He said the workforce development program as a whole is trying to get 1,000 students through the process and into the cyber workforce.
Different schools are hosting their program in different ways, with some schools offering an abbreviated workshop. Augusta University’s program is a six course slate that ends with a Cyber Defender certificate.
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“We’ve been teaching these courses for several years now so the course work is fine and the faculty are all in a comfortable place,” Nowatkowski said.
Applicants must have a cumulative undergraduate GPA of 2.5 and a bachelor’s degree from a regionally accredited institution to be considered. The deadline to apply for the Fall 2021 semester is July 1. To learn more, go to https://cyberskills2work.org/#contact.
Tyler Strong is the Business Editor for The Augusta Press. Reach him at tyler@theaugustapress.com.
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