Cybersecurity camp keeps faculty, high school students sharp

GCU Cyber Center of Excellence recently hosted GenCyber Camp for high school students to learn about cybersecurity.

Photos by Ralph Freso

The ever-changing world of AI and cybersecurity keeps everyone on their toes, from technology experts to instructors to students considering a career in these fields.

And that’s what keeps Grand Canyon University technology leaders prepared as they keep their annual GenCyber Camp fresh as more than three dozen high school and junior high students were challenged this week by a spectrum of exercises that kept them informed and entertained.

“There’s so much to teach that we try mixing it up with different resources that we have,” said Joseph Urbaszewski, GCU Cyber Center of Excellence program manager. “We read the room, we try to see what their needs are, depending on who’s attending, and we just develop.”

“I also have our student workers very much involved in helping develop those plans, so we have core areas of learning and core areas of lessons. But our student workers bring their version of students of what they’re up to and what’s out there, so that mixed together really brings a new, refreshing way of looking at it.”

Cyber Center program manager Joseph Urbaszewski leads a discussion on hacking during the GenCyber Camp at the GCU Cyber Center of Excellence.

Mika Van Knippenberg, who is considering studying cybersecurity and law in college, absorbed the knowledge offered during the all-week camp.

“I believe it offers a lot,” said Knippenberg, a homeschool student whose father works in the cybersecurity industry. “I didn’t know a lot about hacking and how stuff like this works, so it’s helpful and been explained very clear.”

During Tuesday’s session, three groups of eight students were asked to line up in single file and deliver a phrase to each other, with the last person writing down the phrase to compare it to what the first person said.

“When we transfer data, we transfer one by one through the…

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