Two weeks ago I was invited to speak to the DC chapter of the Information Systems Security Association.  The topic of my talk was Learning Cloud Cybersecurity for Free.  This was a great topic for me as I have spent the last 4 years as a Principal Technical Trainer for Microsoft where I was focused on delivering several role-based courses for Microsoft customers.  Prior to this role, I spent 4 years teaching courses for Amazon Web Services.  I am very familiar with the educational offerings from these 2 cloud providers.  I did a little research and augmented my presentation by including the free courses on Google Cloud.

For the past two years I have served as a volunteer in the Microsoft’s Technology Education and Learning Support (TEALS) program where I teach computer science to 9th graders.  Microsoft TEALS is a Microsoft Philanthropies program that builds sustainable computer science programs in high schools.  They focus on serving students historically excluded from learning computer science because of race, gender, or geography.  This has been an incredibly rewarding experience for me, but it also is bringing technology education to students who otherwise would not have access to this knowledge.

As I reflect upon these experiences I can’t help but to recognize how computer science education has changed since I was a young aspiring computer science student.  I had one option.  College.  And that was NOT a free one.  The only way that I could gain the knowledge that I needed in order to secure a job as a technologist was to not only get accepted into college but to pay for said education.  Sure there were books.  And I certainly spent my fair share on books to continue my learning after graduating from college.  My point is nothing was free.  This is more of a commentary on the needs of Big Tech than it is some notion of altruism on their part.  However,  MAKE NO MISTAKE COLLEGE IS STILL THE BEST PATH IN MY OPINION.  But not one everyone has the means to take advantage.

I was once told as a young man; “Computers are the future”.  If you earn a degree in computer science you can write your own ticket.  This has proven to be somewhat true.  Although I wish I had known back then that not all tickets are created equal.  I have certainly wanted to write a ticket and was not able to write it my computer science degree notwithstanding.  But it has been a good career.  The idea then was jobs will be plentiful in this area. 

That is absolutely true.  Since earning my degree in computer science I have never had a hard time finding a job. 

And what I hoped I have conveyed in this brief article is that if you find that you are interested in a career in technology, you do not have to worry about whether or not you can afford access to that knowledge.  Although nothing is absolutely free.  You of course still need a laptop and access to the web.  But if you have those two things in the words of the 1977 hit by Ashford & Simpson, access to that knowledge “Don’t Cost You Nothing”.