Oklahoma City Community College’s (OCCC) Cyber Club had 10 students who competed in the National Cyber League’s (NCL) regular season and postseason games in which over 3000 students from the nation participated.
“Cyber Club students gain real world, hands-on cybersecurity experience from the NCL competition,†says OCCC Professor of Computer Science and Cyber Club faculty sponsor Haifeng Ji. “Beyond the experience that applies what they’re learning in their education, students enjoy the opportunity to connect with other students from across the nation who share their same passion.â€
The regular season, which took place April 13th – 15th, is the portion of the NCL where individuals compete on their own, without the assistance of others, to solve game challenges. The game challenges are aligned with preparatory exercises and allow participants to validate the knowledge and skills they are developing in the NCL Gymnasium.
During the postseason games, real-world cyber security work is done in teams. The NCL postseason event provides a safe and challenging environment for individual players from the regular Season to apply their knowledge and skills in a team setting. The team event requires players to work together to solve real problems, with real deadlines, under time (and in some cases) technical and resource constraints.
OCCC student Matthew Nguyen ranked in the top 10% of the silver bracket of competitors out of 853 students from across the nation.
“The National Cyber Competition was an interesting and exciting experience for me,†said Nguyen. “As someone who is entering the cyber security field, this was a great opportunity to learn some of the skills required to succeed.”
Students apply skills in open source intelligence, cryptography, scanning, password cracking, log analysis, network traffic analysis, wireless access exploitation, web application exploitation and enumeration and exploitation.
OCCC offers two distinct educational paths to prepare students for careers in Cyber and Information Security. To learn more about these programs, visit www.occc.edu/academics/programs/cyber-information-security.html.
OCCC enrolls more than 20,000 students annually. The college is currently the largest adult basic education provider in the state. OCCC offers a full range of associate degree programs that prepare students to transfer to baccalaureate institutions while other degree and certificate programs prepare students for immediate employment. At OCCC, students receive a quality education with small class sizes, dedicated professors and leadership opportunities. Students can choose from more than 60 major fields of study and participate in any of the 40+ clubs and organizations. For more information about OCCC, visit www.occc.edu.
