Hello World

I’ve thinking a lot about what should I say on my first post. It’s very tempting to do “Hello World” and that’s it.

It leaves me with a sense of just emptiness for me. So I’m going to try my best to leave a few details about my journey to this point. To be fair, I don’t want to put Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.

Doubt

Since 2018, I had a big problem what do I do with my future career once I step out of college? Should I apply for a job? Should I go and get my masters degree? If I get a masters should I go with Computer Science and hope that some prestigious institution hire me for research work or do put my effort in another specialty that businesses would appreciate more than just a single degree?

Education FTW!

For my worst reaction, it has been a nightmare of highs and downs. After I graduated from college I took a trip with my parents to D.C. and I was telling them about my future plans. Why? Because I’m close to my parents and they have given me good advice.

I told them that I was interested of keep studying, because for me studying has been a wonderful journey. You do research on a specific topic, you learn the basic concepts, you review the materials before the test, then you hope for the best that everything that you put on the test will be alright. Perhaps my vision of study is not best and perhaps is just mediocre term for education. I always thought that with good education and good effort you will achieve good results. I guess is just something that everyone’s parents program in your brain to be successful.

I’m not trying to say that education is bad, but rather education without putting into practice is not enough. It doesn’t matter if you learn a lot of stuff, if you don’t apply the knowledge you will not learn where to put it. Let me rephrase it, knowledge without practice is just knowledge. Knowledge is good, you think you know something that others don’t, you know that A is A. The problem starts when you start thinking “OK what do I do with A?“.

Can “A” help others?

Of course A can be helpful for many people. A is there just to be applied to a big problem and make it effective. Although the problem is that where do you get the opportunity to apply the knowledge that just learned? Many career orientations would say: “Go out there and start putting yourself as a practitioner, freelance or intern even if it doesn’t pay nothing but you will not lose anything, instead you will get experience”. I wish I could’ve listen to the advice.

Ah experience, the word that not only infuriates me, but just listening or reading it will get on my nerves, right now. Experience is after you applied A for a problem you know that either will work or won’t. Knowledge will only tell you that you can do it but doesn’t guarantee that it will have a positive impact. Experience will tell you that it will work but you need to know where to put A.

Even my own explanations doesn’t make sense for you, but what I’m trying to say is that both knowledge and experience is important. It doesn’t matter if you put a lot in only one. You need a balance between both.

Oh you have knowledge that’s great BUT have you worked on this before?

Here it comes the problem where I get stuck:

“3 years” “5 years” “10 years” “You must be dead and reincarnate to get this job”

Maybe I’m exaggerating on the matter, but believe me that this all I hear when applying. Even before of the masters I did apply to many companies but then my face was slapped by EXPERIENCE. For me it’s unfair that for entry level jobs need to have experience? What’s this? It’s supposed to be ENTRY not MID-Level. Am I misunderstanding the naming?

What? Career orientation never told about these nonsensical topics. But let’s leave out my job hunt rant aside. It’s not the scope of this hello world, but I’m trying my best to describe the journey.

You mentioned a Masters?

Back to the story, for me I chose to keep researching. I really thought that opportunities would arise with a degree that not many people in my country can get it. I imagined that many companies and universities would just see my future curriculum and say: “I need to meet this guy”.

I knew when I took a Computer Security seminar that my journey needed to take a high turn. Security huh? Not many people know about this. I mean in my country there are not many reports of big hacking, in fact, we don’t care. The cyber crime punishment were added to Guatemala’s Criminal Code in 1999, great isn’t? (https://www.oas.org/es/sla/ddi/docs/G6%20Codigo%20Penal%20de%20Guatemala.pdf)

But it never reflected to known cases because it’s just that Law. It doesn’t state that companies or even the same state needed security, their security was a punishment, if they knew who was responsible. Cyber crime acts exactly like that, leaving no traces. I thought that perhaps there is a opportunity of enter this field because there were not many experts in the area in my country, also because there was a lack of security. Also because I was interested in protecting important assets, many people talks about the “hackers” and that’s fine, although they forget the other side of the ones protecting their important data or even their accessibility to technology.

I took the challenge I want to search for something about security. I want to breath security, I want to see it, please just give me anything. There it was, a big opportunity, Scholarship for Cybersecurity in Spain. I was so excited and I immediately started to apply. I got into the interviews, I did my best and I finally got it. I started to think, this is my big chance. I can do it, there is nothing that can stop me from my big dream.

I went to Spain and spent one year, I learned about Information Security, Hacking, Threat Analysis, Risk Management, etc. I thought that the world was there to be eaten. All of my classmates where top students from all over the world, many who I respect till this day and there are doing their best in their current job. I missed them a lot.

Homecoming

In Kendrick Lamar’s - Momma there is a lyric who always made me think about what it would felt my return to my home:

I know how people work I know the price of life, I’m knowin’ how much it’s worth I know what I know and I know it well not to ever forget Until I realized I didn’t know s*it The day I came home

The day I took the plane to return to my home, I keep hearing this song at the airport and thought: “This is it, this is the moment I’ve been waiting. I’ve no longer a simple Bachelor Computer Science. Now I’m a Cybersecurity expert, I know about security, it’s the big day”

The first day that I’ve returned to my home I was welcomed by my family and they noticed how much I’ve been struggling to reach a new goal. Even I was welcomed with a new family member, a pug. Sorry, I’m a big fan of pugs.

Well, after a week of resting I decided know is the time for job hunting. But you might know about the result after hearing my previous rant.

Picking up the pieces

I was devastated, I thought that everything that I’ve learned it meant nothing, that education was worthless. I got a bunch of cheering messages from my friends who I really thank for being there in the worst moments. My family were supportive till this day and continue to cheer me up. I don’t where I would be without my family and friends.

I put every feeling of frustration away and thought: “I’m not going to let end up like this. I need to change, I need to create that experience”

Therefore, I knew that I wasn’t going to let myself be defeated. Let’s create something that will be significant. I took courses in another area that I knew it was going to be the daily necessity of many around my country, Web Development.

I took some online courses at Udemy and thought: “Well maybe here is the big opportunity that I need”. I think many times looking at my CV there was nothing that I can show to future employers. They just saw knowledge but nothing concrete. This is why I immediately thought about a personal blog for putting everything that I’ve worked on or that I’m working on.

Should I just make a personal blog about my personal experiences? Should I make it only about technology and how to achieve something? Personally I’m trying to make A be useful to someone just like me or that has the same experience.

Does anyone knows how to send this back in time so myself from the past can read it?

Anyways, Hello World and Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.