Going back to school!

[Dreamstalker]

I've been pursuing a certificate program at a local community college for computer forensics (my caseworker at the state agency supports it, job coach is trying to throw a monkeywrench into my plans--"we don't want to spend any more money until we can guarantee this gets you a job" what, multiple articles and the word of a government agent isn't good enough?). The other day I got a packet asking for more information (proof of degree etc); we planned to pop over there tomorrow anyway.

Mom gets a letter for me yesterday...

I'M IN THE PROGRAM!!!!

Now I can go back to my caseworker with an acceptance letter, which should light a fire under their ass to approve funding.

Now to research grants that I don't have to pay back...and not screw this up.

[BookstoreEscapee]

!!! Good luck!!

[Taboo]

That;s awesome, congrats!!

[Amina516]

Congrats! Hope it all works out.

[Exaspera]

Good for you! Is computer forensics a relatively new thing? What would you be doing?

[Dreamstalker]

Computer forensics deals with white-collar crime and other forms of digital hijinks; I'll be learning proper evidence/court procedures (super-important when dealing with anything electronic) and how to extract, recover and decrypt information as well as tracing viruses/intrusions. I've played around with penetration testing and done some basic backtraces before, but that was mainly for fun (as well as being within a controlled network environment).

It's a pretty new field; this program's only about 2 years old and was highly recommended to me by the head agent at the US Secret Service Boston office (he actually designed it for the school).

The interesting thing is, in China this sort of thing is considered compulsory education (which is why their "hackers"/crackers are so damn good and probably the reason this program was started).