Blog 2

Continuation of Blog 1…

And what a ride it was! My professors were some of the brightest minds in security. Some were from CERT, and they were trying to solve some of the biggest problems in the field.  At the end, I even had the opportunity to do some work with CERT. Amazing place! I remember thinking every day about the enormous delta of knowledge between what I knew in the morning vs. what I knew in the evening – it was huge! The rate at which I was learning was incredible!  And it was hard for me. I remember that in my first coding class (it was Java 1) I didn’t understand a thing! Mind that my undergrad was in Engineering, where I had one coding class at the most and in my work, besides a little bit of HTML – I did not code that much. I recall that I used that Christmas break to get a handle on Java! I spent it in Germany with my brother (Remember? The one in Part 1?) and he explained it all to me. When I returned, I did well in Java 1 and Java 2, and I even took an extra class called Data Structures, which was famous for being a hard one – and I loved it! I understood how those classes that one used in Java worked and I actually built them! Awesome! 

And my classmates… They were all so smart, creative, and interesting people. For some this was their second masters. And most of them were younger than me. They were from all over the world – Indian, Chinese, a few Europeans, and North Americans and even less Latin Americans (only about 2!). Besides what I learnt at the University, I also learnt a lot about their cultures and other ways of thinking. I fell in love with the Indian music and food! It was an amazing experience, and it was my jumpstart towards this amazing career, in which I never stop learning.

Towards the end, I didn’t know if I should pursue my PhD or start working. There were discussions to do my PhD with one of the professors at CERT. I also got into a few interview processes. I remember interviewing with McKinsey to work in Berlin, Germany. They flew us to NY for several rounds of interviews, but I did not pass the fourth interview. I remember walking the streets of NY all disappointed, entering a bar and ordering a Guinness and calling with my brother in Germany about the whole experience – because it was a great experience! I also interviewed with UBS to work in NY. I remember getting into second or third round of interviews but had to leave the process. Back home, my dad had had a mild heart attack, so I came back.  My scholarship also had a requirement to return to the country to bring the gained knowledge. So, I stayed.  A few weeks after my return, I was interviewing for a job, and about two months later I started my first job in Information Security! I was going to work in one of the largest banks in Central America, as Head of Information Security, to build that area from the ground up.  A huge challenge that I was eager to accept!

This was how I got into Information Security!  In Blog 3, I will talk about my first job in this amazing industry.