A common question one hears in the military is, “What should I do when I grow up?”. This is meant to be a jest, as “growing up” simply means moving on from the military. I had been asking myself this very question since about my four year mark, a time when an enlistee must decide to stay in or get out, it was a question that wasn’t answered until my 15 year mark. By then, I had grown into my boots and had a halfway idea of what growing up looked like for me. I always had a love for technology and had grown up with it as it grew in the late 90s and early 2000s. So, I decided to enroll in college, and picked American Military University as my school. AMU is an online university with a number of degree plans to choose from, and it didn’t take me long to decide on a Bachelor’s of Science in Information Technology concentrating in Computer Programming. The path was set, time to get moving!
The end goal for me is a career in cybersecurity, but with little to no real world IT experience under my belt I had to find a way to get my foot in the door. Enter the Department of Defense SkillBridge program! This amazing program allows service members to intern with a civilian company to gain quality workforce experience while still maintaining their military benefits for up to 6 months before they separate or retire from the service. That is the short term goal, find a SkillBridge I can learn the ropes in. What comes next, I suppose we’ll have to see.
Until next time!