Fueled by an interest in technology, Baylee Blanton taught herself to code in middle school.
She’d later join the robotics team, but that outside of that, couldn’t find other outlets to pursue her passion. It wasn’t until high school that she was able to get practical experience, landing a cybersecurity internship with the University of Pittsburgh.
“There was nowhere in Monroeville to get started if you’re interested in this,” said Blanton, 17 and a student at Gateway High School. “I took it upon myself because I was so interested.”
But this year — Blanton’s senior year — Gateway offered a new cybersecurity class for students.
“It pushed me to know, this is what I want to do,” Blanton said. “I’m glad it’s part of this curriculum. I wish it started sooner.”
Nationwide, under 4% of public high school students have access to even a single cybersecurity course, according to CyberSupply.org, a research website on cybersecurity classes in U.S. public high schools. Only 1.2% have access to a full pathway.
Meanwhile, the United States has more than 572,000 unfilled cybersecurity jobs. And the field is not slowing down: Employment of information security analysts is projected to grow 29% through 2034, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report.
“It’s a lucrative and hot field right now,” said Tyler Perhac, technology education teacher at Gateway. “There are way more job opportunities than candidates.”
In the field, cybersecurity experts need to go beyond the binary ones and zeros.
“So much of cybersecurity is a human element,” he said. “AI is going to help malicious attackers find what it needs quicker — but it’s not going to eliminate the human need.”
‘Certification in their hands’
Jeff Bland teaches cybersecurity at South Allegheny in the Mon Valley. On the first day of each class, he displays all the cybersecurity jobs available on CyberSeek.org.
Cybersecurity is needed in virtually every field and profession, he said.
“At any moment, there’s always going to be a deep need to fill cybersecurity positions,” said Bland, who teaches in the middle school and high school. “You’ve got to get kids with the certification in their hands. It’s an outside school test and outside entity acknowledging that you can do the work.”
Bland said his classes prepare students to earn certifications of CompTIA’s security and networking certifications. Those certifications help people enter the workforce.
“I want to get kids national certifications that get them qualified to work right out of high school,” said Bland, who previously taught cybersecurity classes at Pittsburgh Science and Technology Academy, a magnet in the Pittsburgh Public Schools.
CyberSeek.org reports that 60% of cybersecurity job openings require a bachelor’s degree or higher.
Certifications like CompTIA’s security and networking credentials help students stand out, whether they’re applying for jobs or for college, said Lynette Lortz, a cybersecurity teacher at South Fayette High School.
“It’s a field that changes so quickly and students have to constantly be learning,” Perhac said. “They hire to see if you can continuously learn.”
Blanton, the Gateway student, will attend Penn State and study cybersecurity. Her dream job is working as a cybersecurity analyst at Google.
“It’s really booming,” Blanton said of the industry. “Especially with AI and people interested in learning more technology, I feel everything is cybersecurity related. There’s so many different fields to go into cybersecurity.”
‘Eye-opener’
Courses in South Fayette’s cybersecurity program are open to all grade levels, Lortz said. The program started about three years ago through a partnership with Digital Promise and curriculum provider Paradigm Cyber Ventures.
Students are introduced to areas like mobile and network security, Linux, cryptography and digital forensics, Lortz said. Teachers bring in guest speakers and students also participate in the National Cyber League competition.
In advanced cybersecurity courses, students can work toward additional certifications and participate in job shadowing, Lortz said. She plans internships in the future.
“As they move through the courses, they go from learning the basics to applying those skills in more real-world situations,” Lortz said.
At South Allegheny, Bland said, students enter the cybersecurity class with varying levels of knowledge.
“All of the students are usually comfortable with a Windows or Android or Google environment, but my world is a Linux environment,” he said, referring to the professional operating system for servers. “It’s an eye-opener.”
Gateway’s cybersecurity class is meant to be introductory, Perhac said. Students learn the basics of cybersecurity, the potential for careers and how to keep yourself safe online. They also look at vulnerabilities to hackers in computer systems.
“We want to try to build a pipeline where, after they graduate, they’re ready to go and enter the workforce out of high school and are prepared,” Perhac said.
Joshua Fry, a Gateway junior, could join that pipeline. He grew up around technology and his father works in the field. He said his experience in the cybersecurity class has been constructive.
“I want to try to better systems, so that information doesn’t get leaked to someone with worse intentions,” said Fry, 17.
‘A punk-rock subject’
Bland emphasizes to his South Allegheny students the need to be ethical when working on cybersecurity.
“It’s kind of a punk-rock subject,” Bland said. “You have to learn the bad to do the good.”
Ethics can’t be a single unit or lesson, he said. Instead, it needs to be incorporated with everything students learn.
“We explain the different hats you can wear in cybersecurity — there’s good, bad and those in between to help companies point out vulnerabilities in their system,” Perhac said.
Ethics is built into every unit at South Fayette, Lortz said.
“We want students to understand that cybersecurity isn’t always about defending systems but it’s also about responsibly handling and protecting people’s information,” Lortz said. “Trust is a really important piece of that.”
Bland believes more schools should add cybersecurity courses.
“The need will always be there and I do think it will continue to grow,” he said. “It’s a good pathway for kids that, if high school or college isn’t their thing, it’s another outlet.”
Cybersecurity still has value even with the advancement of artificial intelligence, he said.
“Of all the dominos that will fall in cybersecurity, AI has already hit programming jobs,” Bland said. “I think there will be a major surge for cybersecurity and I don’t think AI can touch it yet in the grand scheme of things.”
