WARNER ROBINS, Ga. — Cybersecurity is a growing field, and needs a growing workforce to match.
Cybersecurity Ventures reported in 2023 that there are more than 3.5 million unfilled jobs in the field, and that trend will continue into 2025.
A new cybersecurity pathway program at Houston College and Career Academy is getting students ready for careers. Adenna Roebuck is a senior at Veterans High School. She said she enrolled in the program right away when she learned about it because she wants to pursue cybersecurity in the future.
"I was like, ‘This will be a perfect opportunity for me,’” she said. “I'll have the bare experience. I'll have experience. I'll be excited to do it."
Instructor Ryan Ashford said learning cybersecurity is not optional because people's lives are becoming more dependent on computers.
"All of our banking, all of our information, personal information, our location, all of that is all being tracked now by these internet of things, devices,” he said. “And as a result, cybersecurity has become incredibly important so that we can keep our data with us and not with people who want to exploit that."
The students are completing online course material that prepares them for the certification exam. Roebuck said she's learned how to read information data and how it's transmitted.
"We are pretty much just like everyone behind the scenes,” she said. “Like we study how issues occur, how to fix them, pretty much how to keep it in line, make sure it's doing its right the job."
Ashford said exposing students to the field while they are still in high school is another benefit.
"Getting them involved at a younger age when they're still in school, they're still learning, they're still in the mindset to learn new things because they've already been there for the majority of their lives is a great way to get that information in there,” he said.
Ashford said the course prepares the students for the certification exam. The exam is not included in the course, but students can choose to take it at the end of the year to advance in the field.
For the rest of the school year, these students will continue learning skills like how to protect internet-connected systems from cyber-attacks.