My Cyblack Experience.
If you got here from my tweet from yesterday, don't be scared:)
If you're reading this, either you’ve been accepted into the new cohort that’s starting in just a few days —congratulations!—or you’re thinking about applying in the near future. Whichever the case, I encourage you to take action and apply for the next cohort because this program is going to take your career to the next level! By joining Cyblack, you’ll be gaining valuable skills, knowledge, and experiences that will set you apart from the crowd and open up new opportunities for you. I recently completed the 3-month Cyblack Cybersecurity Internship Sprint, and I couldn’t be more excited to share my experience with you. It was an incredible journey filled with learning, growth, and lots of fun moments along the way. The most fun part for me was those days when my team and I were confused about the way forward on any task.
How did I hear about Cyblack, and how was I able to get into the just concluded cohort?
I joined a community. As a beginner in cybersecurity or cloud security, it’s important that you join communities and actively participate in activities, or, like myself, volunteer to help out in the community. Cyblack gives 10 slots to CyberSecHaven every cohort, and I was selected to be one of the 10 people who got the slot. I would like to quickly inform you that I volunteer as a project manager at CyberSecHaven, and we need more graphic designers. If you are interested, send a DM.
After getting a slot from CyberSafeHaven, I passed the first selection stage, where I needed to fill out the application form and write a short essay on why I wanted to be part of the internship and how the internship would benefit me. Let me tell you, this part is crucial —don't just write one line; sell yourself well! Hundreds of others are also applying, so make sure your application stands out. This advice is especially important for those looking to apply for the next opening.
This was followed by a task where I was given a scenario and asked to work on an incident response task. This stage gave me a glimpse of what to expect during the internship, because why am I responding to an incident alone and creating an incident response plan..fgs? I had so much fun doing it, and the best part for me was when I had to talk about the incident response plan I created for the last stage of the interview. Cyblack’s application process and interview gave me a feel for what a real-life interview would look like. It made me understand that I can’t go into an interview with anything short of my best.
Now To The Real Tee…
Did I get in? yes na :). I understand the importance of soft skills, such as communication, teamwork, and collaboration with cross-functional teams. However, Cyblack taught me how to apply these skills effectively. During the program, we were placed in different teams, and I found myself in Team 2, which was considered the best team in our cohort. If you follow me on Twitter, you would know what I’m talking about. :)
The best advice our team received and applied throughout the program was from our mentor, Mr. Stephen. Yes, we had two mentors provided by Cyblack, and we had free access to other professionals in the industry like Algorithm and Mrs. Ireti. Mr. Stephen advised us to be the kind of team members we would want to work with and to put in our best effort in all tasks. He also emphasized the importance of accountability to our team members, stating that the failure of one team member is the failure of all. I guess Team 2 took his advice seriously because they held me accountable for tasks and meetings, making me feel like I was part of something great (they wanted to kill me with late-night meetings).
The internship’s hands-on learning was focused on the five leading careers in cybersecurity: an intensive practical sprint focused on navigating careers in threat intelligence, cloud security (specifically Azure), incident response, human factors in cybersecurity, GRC, and ethical hacking.
I have several posts on LinkedIn where I explained the different tasks we embarked on, and my favorites were the threat intelligence, cloud security, and incident response tasks. They were as challenging as the rest, but I found them quite interesting. I am happy to say that my reason for going into Cyblack was to find where I really fit in as a beginner in cybersecurity, and it did not take long to know that I belong in cloud security.
Finally, I would like to add that you should take this internship very seriously because I landed my first job as a cybersecurity sales specialist here. And I can testify that I wouldn’t have landed a role as quickly as I did if it weren’t for Cyblack.
Let me know if this was helpful, and you can reach me on Twitter if you have any questions. I also attached links to pages you should follow.
