Ask Lemmy

Wtf is cyber? Cybersecurity...?

I will say that, for the most part, minors are worthless.

Unless you have a specific combo major+minor for a specific field you are interested in entering, then minors will play essentially no role in the hiring process - other than maybe some casual conversation during interviews. They are essentially seen as hobbies. If you minor in CS, eg, a company looking for developers will have little interest in hiring you without some other evidence that you know how to develop software.

Meanwhile, for your own personal skills that you could put into practice to be useful in a workplace, again, the minor will likely not be very useful. Usually you gain actual useful skills for the workplace at the 4000 level. Minors typically require a bunch of pre-recs, and top out with a handful of classes at tha 3000 level. The earlier classes in the degree are there to lay the foundation.

My vote: if you can hit your credit hours needed for your degree solely with your majors courseload, just do that. Graduate early if possible. Save time and money.

If not, take the easiest classes you can to hit your required credit hours. Use your free time to get an internship/part time job in your field, study more for your major classes in order to get a high gpa, or just, like, have an enjoyable and vibrant social life.

If you want to diversify your potential income streams, get on track to work in a trade. Carpenters, electricians, plumbers, welders, etc probably won't be automated out of a job anytime soon. You don't really need any formal classes for this - just ask around and start working for a local plumbing company or whatever.

But honestly, if you really want the best skills for the workplace - fuck getting a minor, and instead work on your people skills. Instead of going to class, go out and learn how to strike up a friendly conversation with a stranger. Go do something dumb and embarassing, and learn that doing dumb, embarassing things is fine. Train your brain to be optimistic, focused on the positives and opportinities in life, and learn to express this mindset to others. Learn to have uncomfortable conversations, where you tell someone something that you know they won't like, and which might make them dislike you. It's a lot easier to find work when you have lots of friends who know you're smart, cool, and hard working.

Technical writing and/or communications. I got my minor in TechComm, and it has been my sharp end into every job. "You can communicate effectively across a wide range of media for a wide range of use cases?! Hired!"

Public presentation, meetings, project management, interpersonal dynamics, documentation, elucidating articles, proposals, DevRel, requirements gathering, specifications, business analyses, enrichment of peers' skills... All dependent on tech writing and tech comm skills.

TW also makes a decent fallback if (when) you burn out. Hypothetically, let's say you burn out at the 15 year mark. You'll have solid, senior- or principal-level skills and experience in your field which allows you to effectively liaise with professionals in your field. You could switch temporarily to a TW role, move into project or product management, or take over the docs backlog. And there is always a docs backlog.

Since you brought up IT: networks and hardware are always going to require hands-on personnel. It's a solid career choice; just be ready for the continuous learning curve (like most things computing).

Any Cyber professionals think I should just go all in and minor in IT or CS? Or does spreading out a bit more sound good?

Learn programming in your own time, as there's ample resources to learn languages common to cybersecurity (C, C++, Python, Assembler (if reverse engineering is your thing)) outside of college/university.

Pick something that makes you different and marketable against other cybersecurity majors. Given the way the world is going, look at political science, organised crime, or even counter-terrorism, as all of these have streams, if not rivers, into and out of cybersecurity these days.

It provides a much broader context around your cybersecurity studies, other than just being a technical resource, by understanding why threat actors use technical means to attack, rather than just 'how' or 'with what'. Minoring in something other than a technical discipline would broaden your career options to policy roles, among others.

All that said, the minor subject(s) you choose must interest you. Japanese would be really useful to have in a cybersecurity role as it opens doors to communicate with other cybersecurity experts in their own language, including government authorities. Such skills may be desirable by the intelligence community, though I'd be wildly speculating here.

Use your minor to help you expose niches in the discipline that can help you pivot your career, and set you apart from an ocean of dime-a-dozen cybersecurity experts who just did broad, common, technical studies.

A word of advice: Play the long game. My advice may not immediately come to fruition when you land your first paid gig, but it will definitely become a useful playing card as your career develops, providing you maintain those skills. Hell, they don't even need to be part of your minor subjects. Learning Japanese outside of college/university will still make you marketable.

I was going to suggest your most unique interest, and after looking at your likes, I suggest Japanese.

Go all in, focus on OT cybersecurity, field is screaming for people and you get to work in massive industrial systems rather than boring office nonsense

Major in what will get you a job (hopefully). Minor in something you're passionate about. Pick one of the things you like.