Cyber Security Academy/SUCSS/Career Networking/Internship event
It’s been a while, but back on November 17, I ran a joint event with SUCSS, the Southampton University Cyber Security Society, a Career Networking and PGP Key signing party, and an internship night on campus.
The CSA partners NG, DSTL & Roke gave talks to over 70 students.
The aim of the event was to talk about career/internship opportunities with the respective companies. The SUCSS guys Josh Curry, Jamie Scott & Tom Charter hosted the PGP key party, which went down well too.
The evening started out with a welcome drinks reception (including beer & wine), giving the students a chance to mingle with others and enjoy the free booze. Students then made their way into the lecture theatre for the talks.
The speakers besides myself were Michael O’Sullivan, Cyber Researcher, NG; Chris Heyes, Technical Engineer at Roke; and Steve Barrington, Principal Scientist at DSTL. During their 30 mins talks they highlighted their particular research areas, what was good about working for their companies and the opportunities open to people who work for them. Interestingly, Chris and Steve are former Southampton alumni, and Michael has just begun his Phd with us in the Cyber Security group!
The Q&A was interactive with students asking questions about how to apply and nationality requirements to work in our partners companies. More specific questions were What are the benefits of working there? Is there a good social life? Could they be successful in gaining employment after the internship? Many students sought to make appointments with the speakers to discuss the opportunity in greater depth.
Then a former Southampton student Pranav Phanse, now employed at NG following a internship, gave a short talk on his internship experience with NG in the summer of 2017. He said to have greatly enjoyed his 8 week internship with them, and to have been lucky to secure a permanent role with them.
If students are interested, the internships really do work. You get involved in interesting research topics, get paid and this can ultimately lead to a job. It’s like an 8 week job interview without realising it, said Pranav.
Once the talks had finished there was free pizza waiting. I have never seen 25 large Domino’s pizza devoured so quickly! It was a chance for the students to play their PGP Key game with the SUCSS guys (which was enjoyable), talk to the speakers and mingle with one another. There was a lot of interest in how to apply for the internships, and more one to one talking with speakers even discussions on how SUCSS can collaborate with Roke on some exciting things (which I can’t divulge). Roke invited the SUCSS guys to come along to their reading group too. So, relationships made, business cards handed out and connections made, which is the aim for these types of events.
Some of the feedback comments from students were: “Very interesting and informative”, “great to see so many students here,” “the speakers were good,” “content was good,” “great to have free alcohol and pizza,” “I am interested in applying for one at NG.” I also learned that students aren’t really wine drinkers!! 😃
All in all it was a successful evening, followed up with a few of the students (and me) going to The Stags pub for cheap wine/beer and jugs of woo woo cocktails (I felt young again)!
A final plea from me, if you are interested in applying for an internship with the Cyber Security Academy it will be paid at £300 per week for 8 weeks over the summer months. An application form needs to be completed to include your research topic and who you would be interested in doing the internship with. It can be emailed to cybsec@soton.ac.uk or s.l.martin@soton.ac.uk no later than end of January so selection can be made in February. If you have any queries please do not hesitate to contact me.
Sarah Martin
Collaboration Manager
Cyber Security Academy
