I started college a few weeks ago (yay!). Initially, I signed up for a full-time schedule, but I quickly learned how impossible that would be with two full-time jobs (one of them being a parent). After dropping a course, I landed on English 101 and a general career planning course, and so far, I’m really enjoying both classes.
One of the assignments for this week’s career planning course was to identify a possible career path based on my interests. My intention going into college was to explore career paths in psychology that could help children and young adults. That’s still an interest of mine and something I want to explore, but the assignment this week also got me thinking about other career paths in psychology, particularly related to another passion of mine: technology.
At my last job, I was a PR manager for cybersecurity companies. When I started, in November 2021, my knowledge about cyber was limited, so I was forced to dive into learning about the industry headfirst—before I could start writing or talking about it to journalists.
Through my research and time spent holding exploratory brainstorming sessions with cybersecurity experts, I learned about the many issues (and career opportunities) in cyber that exist today. A key problem right now is that humans are the #1 risk factor in cyber, and the top target of hackers. This is why, if you’ve followed news stories at all about cyber lately, you’ll see words like phishing and ransomware. Phishing and ransomware at the core are social engineering methods that hackers use, so there is a huge psychology angle here.
Thus, combining my passion for technology and desire to understand how humans think, I would love to learn more about cognitive psychology careers in cyber. Thankfully, I know a few people in the field, so I’m hoping to speak with one of them to explore this further. More to come!