Hello all. Accepted to Marist and would welcome any insight from CS majors. I see that this past fall (2018) Marist offers a Bachelor of Science in Cybersecurity which is my interest. Any advice from CS majors at Marist or other prospective students needing to make their decisions by May 1 are appreciated. Thank you!
Hi! I am currently junior at Marist and dual majoring in Computer Science and Cyber Security. Both are great programs that create a lot of opportunities for students! One advantage of the program is that all Computer Science, Cyber Security, Information Technology, and Information Systems majors take the exact same classes for the first 2 years. This exposes you to those other fields and often people will change their major sometime in their sophomore year to one of those fields. I decided to stick with Computer Science and software development but because I had to take those other classes I automatically got 2 free minors in Information Technology and Information Systems. This looks really good on a resume when looking for internships and full time jobs and I can say I am dual majoring and dual minoring.
If you are interested in security, I highly recommend the Cyber Security major or minor. It is brand new to the college, but the classes are really cool! Last semester I took Digital Forensics which was such an interesting class and this semester I’m taking Hacking & Penetration Testing which allows us to practice our hacking skills in a secure environment. This class is in the Security Operations Center so we are getting experience using different parts of the lab.
The main reason I went to Marist for this program was because of the student success rate. 99% of students in the School of Computer Science go straight into a full-time job or graduate school (but most go right into a job). You are highly encouraged by the professors to get internships throughout your 4 years and usually a lot of those internships will hire incoming seniors. This means several students know where they are working coming into their senior year which takes away so much stress and allows you to enjoy your last year of college! There are 2 internship coordinators in the department as well that can help you find these internship opportunities.
As you can tell, I definitely believe I made the right decision in coming to Marist and I recommend the Computer Science and Cyber Security programs. I hope this helps with your decision!