Micro-Internships

90-minute interactions between industry partners and small groups of students to develop industry-specific workplace technical and essential skills. 

IECI partners, the Alliance, and Tomorrow’s Talent, have micro-internship programs and will develop cybersecurity-specific experiences in businesses and nonprofits for up to 100 students in the region at a group of pilot schools

Competitions

High schools deliver preliminary or foundational coursework and cyber occupational readiness exercises (applied learning) to prepare students for competitions. Involvement in competitions often catapults students into degree programs and careers in cybersecurity. These cybersecurity competitions include the California Mayor's Cyber Cup, NSA ENIGMA Cyber competition, and CyberPatriot. IECI  works with the organizations running these competitions to encourage more participation. 

IECI is recruiting students in cyber clubs at our community college partners to coach high school teams and to increase the number of participants from our region in the competitions. CSUSB students have coached 15 teams in the past five years. The exercises will be an entry point for risk-averse private sector partners, because students can complete the exercises without access to companies’ internal systems. Also, students get real-world, hands-on experiences. 

GenCyber Camps

CSUSB and our community college partners have a long history in the GenCyber program, creating cybersecurity camps for underserved middle and high school students that stimulate interest in the field. Surveys administered to female students before GenCyber camp found they had low interest in cybersecurity and preferred other occupations, the top choice being social worker. Over the past five years, the number of students selecting STEM as their career goal has risen consistently to 80%, with cybersecurity as the lead discipline. Also, we have had about 40% of our middle school campers return to our high school camps, illustrating students’ desire to learn more about the field. Since hosting our first GenCyber camp in 2015, we have made a strategic effort to bring aspects of GenCyber to our local community, especially online safety information and career awareness. We have reached more than 30,000 students in our region through sessions at K-12 schools. IECI now delivers GenCyber activities year-round beginning in 2023, instead of summers only, to provide opportunities for year-round engagement.

RING Program

As part of the NSA national K-12 effort, the RING program provides curricular resources for our partner schools, including the Alliance’s Cyber/STEM program and schools without established cybersecurity programs. RING provides online cybersecurity learning experiences for high school students, who will earn high school credit, participate in extracurricular activities, and possibly earn college credit through select CAE-C institutions. IECI promotes RING resources through our partnership with the Alliance.

Teachcyber.org 

Teachcyber.org leverages CSUSB’s NSA CAE Community–funded K-12 CAE exploration study to provide instructional materials to educators interested, excited, and ready to teach high school cybersecurity. The Teach Cyber course, based on the High School Cybersecurity Curriculum Guidelines, is Creative Commons–licensed, giving educators the rights to adopt, adapt, and disseminate the course. IECI promotes Teach Cyber resources in partnership with the Alliance and Tomorrow's Talent.

Aptitude and Readiness

Because coordinating activities is not enough, IECI’s Exploration component uses scientific methods to identify and foster talent. 

Through partner Tomorrow’s Talent, all K-12, community college, and CSUSB freshmen/sophomore students who participate in IECI have access to the YouScience assessment platform. YouScience is a scientifically based, widely used and effective assessment tool for identifying students’ interests, skills and inherent strengths and linking those traits to career pathways. YouScience generates a personalized skill profile for each student, plus the careers and academic programs matched to those aptitudes. The assessment helps students understand “how smart they really are” and opens their eyes to careers and choices they may not be aware of, particularly in cybersecurity. In addition, YouScience provides exercises to refine and increase skills in areas like spatial thinking, pattern memory, visual memory, numerical computation, hand-eye coordination and more. Educators and IECI project leaders will receive students’ results so they can assist students with placement, course selection, and application of their skills to cybersecurity. Also, Tomorrow’s Talent is working with YouScience to create profiles for cyber positions identified by industry employers, students, and the NICE framework.