The program prepares students for entry level positions in cybersecurity and computer crime deterrence.  It also prepares students for successful transfer to other institutions of higher education, including Charter Oak State College’s cybersecurity bachelor’s program.

The overall outlook for cybersecurity careers in Connecticut is strong.  The Connecticut Department of Labor projects demand in Computer Science to increase by 17.4% between the years 2012 and 2022. Information Security Analysts (Cybersecurity) is projected to be up 18.6% in the same time frame.

Nationally more than 209,000 cybersecurity jobs in the U.S at a variety of levels are unfilled and postings are up 74 percent over the past five years. Demand for positions such as information security professionals is expected to grow by 53 percent through 2018 according to sources analyzing Bureau of Labor Statistics projections.

“Even if the industry were able to fill the estimated 1.5 million open cybersecurity jobs by 2020, we’d still have a skills crisis in security,” says Marc van Zadelhoff, head of IBM Security in a May 10, 2016, Fortune article on Cybersecurity.