Younger students getting chance to train in cybersecurity
When Joshua Gutierrez was 7, his father gave him an iPad and free rein to use it.
Now, the 18-year-old senior at Northside Independent School District’s Business Careers High School is preparing to graduate with three information technology and cybersecurity industry certifications, plus 13 more attesting to his expertise in programs such as Microsoft Excel and Access.
Gutierrez is a rarity, his principal said. He knows his way around the inner workings of computer systems so well he sometimes knows more than his teachers. While some students go to college hoping to discover what they want to do in life, Gutierrez called college a “fallback” behind his plan to work for companies and attack their security systems to identify vulnerabilities and better protect sensitive information.
Gutierrez seems set, well ahead of his peers and even some young professionals. Yet he’s a little jealous of the students going into Zachary Middle School Magnet next year.
The Northside ISD school will begin offering a specialized program for global communications, cybersecurity and information technology, meaning students as young as sixth graders will start being trained for a realm of specialization whose job opportunities are booming.
“Oh man, I would heavily wish that (program) had been around when I was in middle school,” Gutierrez said. “I feel starting off at a young age will ultimately give you more knowledge.”
This from a young person who could enter the field right now.
As San Antonio works to maintain its standing as a global hub for the cybersecurity industry’s military and corporate applications, local high schools and colleges have responded by creating more programs to train local talent. Just this month, the University of Texas at San Antonio launched a $111 million cybersecurity research institute, which will be at the univer
sity’s downtown National Security Collaboration Center, set to open next year.
High school programs are proliferating across Bexar County school districts. North East ISD recently purchased a building to convert into a center for a cybersecurity magnet program.
San Antonio ISD already has two early college high school programs focused on cybersecurity and health care jobs and is preparing to launch a manufacturing- and engineering-focused Pathways in Technology, or P-Tech, early college high school.
At Northside, the Business Careers High School that Gutierrez attends was one of the area’s first to offer programs in cybersecurity and software development. Now it’s getting a shake-up, changing its name and putting more emphasis on the specifics of the current job market. It will be called the Northside School of Innovation, Technology and Entrepreneurship, or NSITE.
“The trend is getting kids earlier and earlier, even as early as elementary school, getting them aware of cybersecurity and technology and coding,” said Ben Peavy, a managing director for consulting company Accenture Federal Services who heads its San Antonio office, which has an apprenticeship program that has been training Business Careers High School students for the past five years.
“I expect to see more middle schools and even elementary schools start incorporating cybersecurity and programming into their curriculum,” he said.
Industry leaders are welcoming the trend, even extending their resources to help K-12 programs thrive so the talent pipeline is strong.
“It’s very important because by the time they get to us, they’ve already done something that someone like me ... never even touched until I got to college,” said Jered Sellers, a cyber software engineer at Lockheed Martin in San Antonio. The local branch of the company is helping Zachry Middle School Magnet shape its program.
The application period for the different magnet programs in Northside is open now, which means fifth graders are in the position of making decisions that will affect their future careers.
Some kids at age 10 and 11 really have an idea of cybersecurity as a work opportunity and think they’d like to do that, said Gina Rodriguez, academic dean of the new program at Zachry Middle School.
“They’re digital natives,” she said.
Elementary school counselors help foster that interest with presentations about live hacking and cyber threats. Sometimes, though, kids will go through a magnet program and decide it’s not the career field they want. That’s good too, Rodriguez said — it’s better to find out in K-12 schools than in college after spending thousands of dollars.
Such wasn’t the case for Gutierrez. Though his first dream was of working in space, the idea of exploration transitioned to the cyber world pretty early on. At first, he said, his parents were nervous about his goal. His father, a maintenance manager, and his mother, who works in pharmaceutical technology, were unsure about the job picture.
The facilitators of these academic programs and the industry professionals acknowledge it’s incumbent on them to educate young people and their families about the demand for cybersecurity workers. A shortage already existed before the COVID-19 pandemic, which has sharpened the need as more people work from home and companies and schools have fallen victim to cyber attacks.
The demand will only become greater with each technology application that is developed, Accenture’s Peavy noted. Industry leaders in San Antonio want to ensure they retain homegrown talent by fostering an early sense of community.
“Technology people and cybersecurity people like to be in communities that have a lot of technology and cybersecurity,” Peavy said. “We are doing leading, world-class cyber in San Antonio.”