Scholastic Wind-Down

Wow what a semester both at UT Arlington and at Dakota State University. At the beginning of the semester I took and passed the CISSP exam. All in all it was not an easy exam in that almost every question of the 250 was situational in nature. I received notification a few weeks ago that I passed endorsement as well. This is excellent as I was using this as an opportunity to begin preparing for my comprehensive exams in Fall 2013.

In addition I learned a great deal about design science approaches to research, specifically artifact creation. I will be working on this more in the Spring of 2013 while trying to get an article out the door. We will see how it goes. I would like to have some basic things completed before comprehensives in 2013, mainly publish an article in a conference or journal, finish my textbook, which at this stage is in outline format, complete the work necessary to get the certificate program for UT Arlington launched, and prepare my dissertation proposal outline by Summer. I am teaching three courses in the Spring and taking two myself, but the coursework and deliverables I'm working on are both security related, so hopefully it will be a recap for me.

I was able to go to my first graduation as a faculty member last Saturday night and it was amazing. I realized my jaw hurt on Sunday morning due to all the smiling I did as our students walked across. I was awesome to get to see these students achieve their degrees. I cannot wait until Spring to get to see more of these people, who I have the honor to get to see almost daily, achieve their academic and professional goals.

Spring Update: So Far Behind!

I managed to pull away from work and studies for two stimulating days and drive to San Antonio for the 1st annual ACM SIGSAC CODASPY conference. I learned quite a lot and managed to meet some fascinating academics and practitioners.

The conference itself was good and the papers were a great read. Dr. Sandhu made an excellent keynote presentation about the upcoming challenges in security, especially on application security in a mobile market. I also really enjoyed several of the discussions I had with the presenters. I was also extremely excited to know that my curiosity in certain fields, mainly security related to mobile and embedded devices, seems to be a expanding field. I even managed to meet the author of a textbook I plan on using at my local university in the next year to meet my teaching requirement.

I also walked away having met some fantastic people in the realm of practitioner security. I am now, more than ever, ready to take and pass my CISSP exam. I received a lot of great advice and encouragement from current CISSP holders and was taken up on my offer to assist in the working of the conference next year.

All in all - an awesome experience.