Hack the Madness: Building a Worldclass Cyber Team Online
Host Lauren Cardillo sits down with Jesse Varsalone, a cybersecurity guru, UMGC faculty member, and the coach of UMGC’s award-winning cyber competition team, the Shells. Jesse shares his 32-year teaching journey, explaining how he transitioned from a high school math teacher to the fast-paced world of cybersecurity. He breaks down the biggest misconceptions about the field, emphasizing that it requires curiosity rather than advanced math, and boasts incredibly low barriers to entry. Jesse also dives into the diverse makeup of his championship team—which includes everyone from bartenders to military personnel—and how their online, flexible model helped them conquer major professional competitions and reach the Final Four in "Hack the Madness". Whether you are a career changer or a tech hobbyist, Jesse proves that anyone with passion can go pro in cybersecurity.
Episode Information
Jesse
The most important thing about cyber security, as opposed to almost any other industry that I know. There are very few barriers to entry. So if I want to be a doctor, then I need to go to school for about ten years. If I want to start doing cyber good, actually start possibly doing that in high school. So you could start a career, you could go to a community college, get a two year degree.
I've seen all these things happen. These aren't just speculations. Welcome to the UMGC podcast Unstoppable Stories with your host Lauren Cardillo.
Lauren
Today I'm joined by Jesse Varsalone. You are a well known cyber guru. You are a coach of a very well known cyber team here in Maryland, and you're a member of the UMGC faculty and an author. And so, Jesse, thank you so much for being here today. We really appreciate it. And my first question is always, how did you get into this?
How did cyber and computers become your thing? Were you the kid in the basement tearing apart computers? What was it?
Jesse
Absolutely not. So, when I was a kid, it was the 80s. Computers were a lot different. They basically. Or, like, green screens and orange screens and floppy drives, and they were a lot less interesting. And, a lot of the work done on computers was actually in isolation. So I started, you know, using computers from a very early age programing.
This was before windows came out. So you were using like a Atari and Commodore and, you know, when I went to college, originally I wanted to do, computer science, but then I pivoted and said, you know, I really want to work with people. So I became a teacher, and I've been teaching now for a total of 32 years.
And, that background extends to I've taught high school, I've taught for the Department of Defense at DC three, which is the Defense Cybercrime Center for five years. That's over here in Lithia, Maryland. I've taught, graduate school, undergraduate school, Noncredit, community College. And I've actually taught at many of the different universities within the University of Maryland system, including Coppin, Umbc, Towson.
I've done summer camps in College Park, Maryland. And of course, let's not forget Umbc. I'm sure.
Lauren
You've taken your love of teaching pretty much to any outlet that you enjoy teaching. But why computers, then?
Jesse
Well, actually, I actually started as a math teacher, when I was in high school, and I pivoted to, teaching computers and wound up that, you know, originally I was a computer person in the 80s, and I. I found my love for everything. And, you know, I had the skill set and, desire and passion.
But I'm very passionate about computers and cyber, and it's my idea of fun. Math. While I was a math teacher, primarily, I chose a math teacher because although I did enjoy math, I knew there was a when I, when I first started teaching, it was hard to get a teacher job, so I, I chose math because that was something that you could get a job in for sure.
But, cyber is actually something I'm really passionate about and interested in, and I can go look up, new things and learn new things every day, especially with the emergence of AI. It's basically like having, a personal tutor every day, all day. That helps me learn new things. And, you know, I don't use it as a shortcut for the most part.
I just use it to enhance my own understanding of things.
Lauren
So when did you sort of make that that switch, what prompted you to go? Math is fascinating, but cyber is like growth, you know?
Jesse
But I, got a call from Umbc, University of Maryland, Baltimore County. I guess I had applied to a job online, you know, back when I had, like, a windows 95 computer and, they actually had, reached out to me, and I thought it was a solicitation to go to the school, but they said, we're interested in having you, you know, be a, you know, a cyber instructor.
So I went up there and did a presentation and they said, well, you're really good at presenting and teaching, but you don't have the background necessary for these classes. So we're going to train you. So I took all the classes and then it went from there. So, so about since 2000 I've been teaching cyber, cyber. And there's different certification tracks, you know, eight plus and net plus they teach you how to fix computers and network computers and then, you use different operating systems.
So it's, it's been a total of about 26 years now that I've actually been involved. It's in, that those type of it slash cyber classes.
Lauren
So you so you have seen it all done at all. What's like for people who are not cyber people. What's the most exciting thing about cyber right now? Well, so.
Jesse
I say these things and people very much appreciate traditionally, there was computer science. This was, or coming back full circle to math. This is this has been a degree that has scared many people off over the years because of high math requirements, including, like calculus, high level calc two, calc three. Computer science has been about the math and hard math in a in a cybersecurity major at Umbc and possibly other institutions.
I'm not sure we only have one math class. It's not about math. It's more about updating windows and updating Linux and fixing problems and networking. So that's that's one thing that's exciting to people who aren't math people. Now, let me go beyond that. The most important thing about cyber security, as opposed to almost any other industry that I know, and whether this is exciting, there are very few barriers to entry.
So if I want to be a doctor, then I need to go to school for about ten years, or a lawyer if I want to start doing cyber, you could actually start possibly doing that in high school. So you could start a career, you could go to a community college, get a two year degree. I've seen all these things happen.
These aren't just speculations. I've seen people in high school have jobs, who who study it and do it a lot. I've seen people get jobs with an associate from a community college or even a four year or, a grad degree. It varies, but the barriers to entry are low. You can go out and get a certification exam.
You can take a couple classes at a community college. You can study cybersecurity in a high school program. So there's there's opportunities. You can you can be self-taught and learn it on your own. There are so many different avenues to get the information. Other career fields like nursing very important. Even these, they have more, you have to have a certain certification level or education level.
Cyber doesn't have that. And one final caveat on on the cyber security discussion is an interesting thing about cyber is say you go to one of the top universities in the world, University of Maryland, and you meet a PhD in history or math, and you take those people, and say, you, you know, you you go with them to a high school, those people are going to have so much more depth and knowledge than people in high school or community colleges about history or math, because, you know, they're a PhD.
They've been studying, they've been researching. But in cyber, you might have somebody who's in high school that knows how to program a language, something like go program that someone with a PhD in computer science has never even used. So the high school students, actually the expert and the the PhD in computer science may have zero knowledge of that specific topic.
So cyber really is vast and.
Lauren
Like it's like an equalizer almost.
Jesse
Yeah. It's it's so vast and deep that, you know, an expert in this may have never even tried this or use this. There's so.
Lauren
It's yeah, it sounds like you are describing your, your cyber team. You.
Jesse
Absolutely. So, I can talk about that a lot. So our team, first of all, I'm very proud and honored to work with our team. Our team is made up of. It's a very, very diverse team. And we have students all over the world. We have students in Italy, Guam, Japan, England, Colorado, Chicago, Ohio, Maryland, Florida, everywhere, California.
So, that that really makes us diverse. As far as you know, we have people all over in all types of life experience. We have people in every branch of the military, including Space Force, Coast Guard, every branch. We have, students of all different ages and backgrounds and experience some who are career changers, some who, have vast experience in the field.
And, would that really makes us good? And that's one of the things that I like to tell people, because it often shocks them and surprise them, is some of the most successful cyber students that we, that we've ever had on the cyber team did not come from a background in cybersecurity at all. One was a bartender, one was, a bike manager for RPI.
That specific, person I know got more certifications than anyone I ever met in the field. We've had people who are musicians who are chefs, people who are in the Navy doing, other non-related cyber tasks, that pivoted to cyber. So just because, someone, doesn't have a background in cyber, once again, that's a lot different than other careers, right?
Other careers, people tend to be kind of lifers, or they've been doing it for 20 years or something like that. The one, gentleman who was, a bartender, he had to pivot during Covid. He got his undergrad grad for us, and, now he works for Fort Meade, at the National Security Agency. And he is actually one of our best, competitors when he has the time anymore.
Lauren
When he's available. Right. So did you start the team or was it already there? And I know it was called the Padawans at that point, right? Right.
Jesse
So that's a great question. No, the team was not started by me. It was actually, student, I believe his name was Chris cool. And, Doctor Baskar, who has been with the university for, I think about 30 years. And, Jeff chapter, was another person that initially started. I was involved from an early point because I was interested in doing some of that.
So before I came on full time, I was an adjunct starting in 2011, and I became, a, full time employee at 2015. And that's when I took over the team.
Lauren
So why were you the Padawans.
Jesse
In Star Wars? That was, you know, that's basically training to become a Jedi. Disney bought Star Wars from George Lucas for $4 billion. And after that, they requested that we because we were getting some press from our successes, that we no longer use the name. So.
Lauren
So you actually got a letter from Disney saying you need to change your name?
Jesse
I believe that was a cease and desist email. But anyway, we changed to shells, for a few reasons. One, shells is in the public domain, so we won't receive any emails about that. Shells has different applications, but it's very also, specific to, computers. There's all types of shells, there's power shells, there's bash shells, mine shells, reverse shells and secure shells.
But, the other thing is, you know, turtles have shells and we have other sister, universities with, animal that has a shell. So, we kind of thought it all fit perfectly together. I wanted to come up with a name that we would not, have getting any trouble for using, as well as a, something that we could, use different angles on that specific name.
So, you know, we can we can really pivot with that name. Well, because we can have five different shell teams. Sometimes we have, you know, five or more teams competing in a single competition. So,
Lauren
And for those, for those of us non techie, you just listed like five shells. What does that mean in like computers.
Jesse
Well I mean there's different like basically it's an interface that you can interact with the keyboard to type in commands. And they have those in Windows and Linux. And so those are the as well as other operating systems. So that those are the primary interfaces that we do our communication with that. That's one type of shell.
Lauren
Got it. Okay. So you're being a little modest. Your team, you know, has won some major competitions, has done well nationally, internationally and like you said, not always the most. What's the word I'm looking for? People you would expect to be on the team there from all different, diverse backgrounds. So you as a coach and an A and a teammate, you know, how do you get the best out of them?
How do you end up winning these competitions? You know, how does that make you feel?
Jesse
Well, yeah. We don't always win everything. We don't always place, but we do often. And it's it's a different experience. So I, I did describe that. I was initially a high school teacher, and it was also a high school coach. So I did coach wrestling and swimming and football, back in the day. And, is coaching, a cyber team is a lot different because, you know, the coach, sometimes the coach isn't even allowed in the buildings.
Sometimes, like this past Friday when I met, that was the first time I actually got to ever meet, some of the people on the team because, you know, we're an online institution. And so we all met up in Virginia, and, that was the first time that some of them actually got to meet me face to face.
So, it's it's a lot different than other types of coaching. There are some things like I have to coordinate, make, call everybody, make sure everybody's ready to for the next day, do things. One thing that I'll do a lot that might not be, similar to other coaches is I'll do a lot of recommendations for careers or, they'll ask me, I hey, can I use you in a background investigator investigation for clearance or something like that?
So I'm doing a lot of, helping them towards their career. That is the main goal. And I actually have a saying, that I made up and that, you know, we're we're we're actually the team where everyone goes pro because we actually, our students are getting jobs and they're going out there, and that is becoming pro for them.
And, we have people that stay connected with us, that have been on the team for more than ten years. When they're alumni, they stay connected. We have different rules for, who can compete. Sometimes alumni can compete sometimes, you know, faculty sometimes just undergraduates. It just depends on the competition.
Lauren
Some of those competitions I was reading, you know, the other universities that ended up in the standings are some pretty big places, prestigious places. How does that make you feel when your team really reflects, as adult learners? How does that make you, you know, sort of feel when that happens, when you beat them? Yeah. Well.
Jesse
In some ways we have an advantage over many, universities because our students are working in the field or their experience. They have backgrounds. They, do this for a living as opposed to someone who's, you know, straight out of high school in a couch. What? Where? Where we are at a and also, you know, one of the other things that I tell people a lot is during Covid, we actually, you know, we we grew so a lot of the, people that were, at other schools struggled during Covid to retain membership because they were doing face to face meetings.
But we had already been doing our meetings online. So we actually grew and, really started to come into our own as a team. We started to build our membership, during Covid, other schools have still not recovered from Covid. They were meeting regularly. Their teams were doing great. They were kind of unstoppable, if you will.
But then Covid happened and it it just broke up their whole momentum and, you know, things happened or people left or went to different places. But but for you MGC we we've, we've excelled under that because of, you know, just being online and flexible and that that's just part of our DNA, to keep going.
So we were able to build and, you know, so, so we have an advantage over other schools where we have a disadvantage. And I'm very, forthright about, you know, it's not all perfect either, is, you know, if or if you're in a dorm together and you're able to meet on campus and plan for a competition coming up, that's a huge advantage to those teams.
A traditional university like University of Virginia or University of Maryland, College Park or Umbc. So they they could have very good. They could know, okay, this person's good at this skill. This person's good at, leadership. Let's put these and, you know, a lot of times our teams will be coming together in different time zones. Never really worked together or met each other face to face.
So that's that's a challenge too. So our advantages, we have advantages and, and we have disadvantages. And our advantage over them would be, you know, having more people who work in the field and have experience and, and know some of the tools, their advantages might be their ability to collaborate more effectively in a face to face traditional university.
So, we get a lot of respect because people know that we, are constantly at the top of the ratings. But like I said, that that's the students and their ability and, you know, the tough part is we get a lot of superstars and, they graduate. So, one of our students finished first out of 6001 students in, in the nation on an individual contest.
But you know, that student we, we can't really use during competitions anymore because they're graduated and working in the field that student actually, I met on a, a base in Langley in Virginia. So I actually have done some outreach and gone to different, VC bases around the world and run competitions to meet people who might be interested in cyber and have had a chance to go to Langley twice.
Norfolk, Miramar and San Diego and Andrews and as well as gone to some community colleges. As well as even high schools, and run some events to, you know, represent Umbc and get things. So I also run competitions, as well as part of my outreach to, you know, bring in people once.
Lauren
Again, you're listening to Jesse Barcelona on Unstoppable Stories. If you want to hear more stories like this, don't forget to like or subscribe on your favorite podcast channel. You were just talking about how you recruit people. I went to your website and it has like, if you're interested, apply here. And I'm like, okay, what are you looking for?
What's that application process like?
Jesse
Well, I don't want to give away the secrets, but one of the ways that we actually, have most effectively recruited, we do have, you know, information on the website and they can reach out to me, but we actually put a message in each class, and we have thousands of cyber classes at Umbc and, you know, hey, we have a team.
Did you know we had a team? Here's a way to become part of the team. So we actually have that level of outreach. And we have five, 5 or 6 different ways they can make the team. If they were on a team in high school or a community college, they automatically qualify. They can just get, you know, an email from their previous coach.
We have a little tryout process. We have different it certifications that if they already possess that they would automatically qualify. And we also allow people in certain job roles. So for example, if they're on a cyber protection team for the Army, Navy, Air Force, marine, Space Force or Coast Guard already, then they they're already doing what we're doing for a living.
So that's an automatic qualification. So so those are those are some of the ways that we get people on the team. Word of mouth I always talk about the team when I go I last week I was in San Diego, California, and an event and, and I talked to people about the team and joining the team and, and faculty also can be part of the team, too.
Faculty are not required to, to do any type of tryout. They automatically qualify.
Lauren
So so for you which which do you like better being the teammate or the coach?
Jesse
So I prefer to compete if I can. That's that's always fun. You always learn new things. You become experienced in the types of questions they ask. I also write my own competition. So I'm very familiar with, you know, how how to write questions and how to answer and what they might be looking for. But, you know, some of the competitions are very it depends on the categories.
We have a large variety of categories within cyber and some some of us are strong and some some of us are weak. And so we always try to, you know, look at things so we can improve our entire overall skill set to make it more well-rounded.
Lauren
So for those of us who have never been to a competition or been online for one, explain to me what happens.
Jesse
So lots of different things. I mean, some of them are actually online, so we'll just, some of them are team based and some of them are individual based. Typically it's a team based, a team might be four people and there's a scoreboard and basically, you know, the different teams as they answer more questions, move up in the rankings.
And, you know, so if I'm the coach, typically I will be watching the scoreboard throughout the day. If I'm competitive, if I'm competing, I will probably, you know, look at this scoreboard every once in a while because you're focused on answering questions and stuff like that.
Lauren
So you're presented with either something that has issues and somebody could get into. And how would you solve that, or are you presented with how would you would protect some system, like what are the scenarios?
Jesse
All of the above. So some of the competitions are just basically what's called capture of the flags, where you answer questions about cryptography or forensics or reverse engineering. There are blue team competitions where you have systems and you have to secure them from live hackers. We do a couple of those every year. And then there's red team competitions where you have to be the hackers and get into the systems and do all those types of things.
So all these different things and these are great experiences for students, to get prepared for the work place. And it's a really exciting thing. And it excites them about the field. And you know, a lot, a lot of times, recruiters will, show up at these events because they know that people who are interested in doing this for fun outside of class are very highly motivated, and may be great candidates to work for their companies.
So we get a lot of that, too. One time we were at a competition at University of Maryland, College Park, and they offered a job to the, all the students on my team because they got one specific problem, right. That triggered some type of a job offer. And, unfortunately, all the students already or fortunately, they already had jobs, so, none of them had to accept.
But nonetheless, those are especially today, right now with the job market a little bit, a little rougher at the moment. It hasn't been that way, really, in cyber in a while. Those are great opportunities for students to network and talk with employers. And even if you're not looking, it always helps to talk and see what's out there and what you might be interested in later or what you might pivot to.
A lot of our students may be transitioning from leaving the military to civilian life, and they might be looking at what's what's next for me down the road.
Lauren
So it sounds like with with all your success, there's there's good and bad, it's success. But then you lose all those students, and you have to you have to keep bringing in new ones. Is there are there are there like three skills that you think are common to the students who do the best?
Jesse
So it helps if you can work independently and know how to solve problems and approach problems. So that that's a very, help, not just for being on the team, but for working in the field. So, you know, being able to solve a problem, being able to work on your own, I would say that's and, you know, understanding that you're going to see something that you haven't seen before and you may not know how to solve it.
And trying to come up with a way to approach, not not letting that scare you off. And speaking of that, that leads perfect into the next thing. Almost every student that starts on the team says, you know, I don't belong here. I'm not. You know, I'm not good enough. I don't have the confidence or I haven't really done a lot of this.
And that's what they all say when they start. And I say that to them like everybody says that and then they do great. You'll be fine. You know, you just you made it here already. Now let's let's run with it. And, some people run with it. You know, some people just live it and breathe it. So the one thing that's very important is, if you're really serious about, like, doing well on the team and doing well in the career, you know, you should have a home network set up.
You should play with the stuff all the time. Now, here I am. I've used Linux for 26 years and I still use it every day. I've used windows since 1994. I still use it every day in practice, every day. So I, I don't just say people should do this or students should do this. I actually live it myself.
So I, I, set an example. But yeah, you really have to, you know, play with it and be it passionate about the various technologies, you might find something like you got a garage door and, you know, it connects to the internet and you want to set it up and secure it. That that might be your idea of fun on a Friday night.
It's just, that's that's that's the thing is, you don't have to be, you know, great at math or anything. You just have to have a curiosity about technology. And if you go to high schools, you'll find people that know how to install apps for their parents or set up their parents routers, or hook up their PlayStation or switch to the network and, you know, open certain ports so they can play certain games on an Xbox.
Those are the kind of people that that really have a great potential to be cyber people. And that's what I say when I go speak at high schools or, or community colleges, because you may not realize you are the cyber person that, that needs, you know, if you're if you're going to, your family's house for Christmas or Thanksgiving and they want you to take a look at your computer, you're you probably have cyber security for a, as a career for yourself.
Joyce.
Lauren
You just didn't know it. But it also sounds like for you, it's also fun. Like like, it's just not, you know, looking at a computer screen that you really enjoy it, and so should the students.
Jesse
Yeah, it is fun. They say if you do something you really enjoy, you never work a day in your life. I, I enjoy cyber, I enjoy I'm fascinated by, you know, password cracking and security and breaking into systems and how that's done and how to find out what the hacker did. It all is just things that are these are all things that I find very interesting.
And, you know, if you do find it interesting, you usually find yourself a lot more successful in the career. Some people are in the career field because it can the some of the jobs can be quite lucrative, if you have enough certifications and experience. But if you really enjoy it. Yeah. And most of the people doing competitions and stuff, a lot of it is, you know, they enjoy doing that.
They enjoy learning. They enjoy the challenges, they enjoy seeing the unknown. And, it it's a lot of fun. That's to me, it's it's it's all part of the, cyber security team and the cyber security career. They're they're one and one to.
Lauren
Make your team. Recently, the shells recently took on a competition with the Association of Old Crows. Tell us how that went. What happened?
Jesse
So that was a face to face competition. So that means you had to show up there and it was in Aberdeen. So we had, one current student and two alumni and we competed. And not only did we finish beat all the, other university teams that competed, we also beat all the professional teams as well. But once again, that goes back to, you know, one of the alumni that I brought, he's working in the field up there.
So, you know, our, we have some of the best cyber people that I've ever met that have gone through Umbc. Some of them have been on the team and, and they like to compete. And, this, particular student, enjoys competing. And when I asked them to come, he actually drove quite a distance from Pennsylvania.
But, that was fun. To beat both of them. That that was extra recognition. And then actually, we wound up being in another competition. And I believe that was early February, where, it was four of us and we beat all the professional teams, and we were the only one to finish with a perfect score.
And that was the CrowdStrike, competition for WWT. And, that's world wide technology. And, we finished with a perfect score, and we finished the competition like, an hour and a half or two hours early. So, that those are really, nice because, you know, it's one thing to be other colleges, but to be professional teams, it shows you that we really have well-rounded students and, alumni and skilled people who really, you know, know a lot about.
So it's it's a validation of the Umbc programs and, their, their talents, the professors, their students, their alumni. So, that's that's actually extremely pleasing to me and makes me so proud, because what's really interesting about both those competitions is really it wasn't one person, it was multiple people doing multiple things with diverse skills that all came together and, made it a team.
So that that really is a very, satisfying thing as a coach to see everyone contributing and everyone's knowledge needed to get to that one's point. And that's one of the great things about, you know, these competitions is you really get to demonstrate your knowledge and your skills and, show that, yeah, Umbc is is really a major, force in, in, in cybersecurity programs.
It's in the country.
Lauren
I also hear there's a competition that sort of is like the Final Four in college basketball, which is totally cool. What is it? What is it about?
Jesse
It's called Hack the Madness. And there are 64 teams through college teams for throughout the United States. And, Umbc was the first one was last March. So they ran it in March to, when March Madness typically happens. And actually, Umbc that we made it to we finished first in our region, which means that put us in the final four.
So we beat a number of teams. We got through the round of 64, 32, 16 and Elite eight and made it all all the way to the Final Four. We actually got to we competed against, Umbc. They've actually traditionally been a, a big powerhouse in, cybersecurity competitions. But, we, we, we went to, in our match, we lost a unit, University of Central Florida in the and our Final Four match.
And they did wind up winning the whole thing. But what was really interesting is we had, one of our students was in Japan, and, he's a pen tester, one was in England, and his, his wife works for, Fort Meade. So he's stationed over there. One of our students actually works for Fort Meade, but she was an East Asian studies major, so, but she did cyber for a little.
So, and then, another of our, students, Brandon Wright, he was actually the first University of Maryland global campus student ever who was drafted by the U.S Cyber Games team. And he was actually drafted in 2025. So he was drafted. And, I'm also one of the the coaches for the United States Cyber Game team for their pipeline program, too.
So, and we had some other students too, and everyone contributed, and it was just a wild, thing. And I was so proud of it. It was a team of six. So proud of all the students, and their accomplishment. And, we all got sent some, you know, hats and shirts for making the final four. So it was it was a really a great accomplishment.
Lauren
Was it like one weekend, like, you know, March Madness is weeks? I mean.
Jesse
So yeah, it was multiple weekends. It was Saturday and Sunday if you want. On Saturday you made it to Sunday then then it took a couple of weeks off and then Saturday and Sunday, and then you made it and continued. And that actually kind of messed up our competition schedule because we made it so far in, and it wound up going on the same day as another competition, and it was just too much.
We had to focus on that one because that was making it to the Final Four was big, and we will be competing again this year as well.
Lauren
Those are good problems to have. You know, when we do grad walk, I can't tell you how many people come through with cyber degrees who are just like, I'm already there. I'm using it. I've been using it for a while. It's been my pathway. It's like. But as Doctor Fowler would say, it's transform lives, you know? So, I totally agree with you as, as reputation grows in competitions, what advice would you give to someone sitting out there thinking, maybe I should do that?
What would what would be your advice to a future team member?
Jesse
Yeah, I mean, to me, everyone who's been part of the team has benefited through networking. Sometimes jobs, sometimes advice, career advice or advice about transitioning out of the military. So what you're really doing is you MGC is a big school. It's over 100,000. When we're on the cyber team, we're a much smaller community that really knows each other a lot better and, works to help each other.
There's various problems that they come across and they, they work. They work together and collaborate. So it gives you that little small school feeling within a very large school. But again, the big thing is a lot of people think, well, I'm not, you know, I don't have enough skills or I'm new to cyber. Those those are not barriers.
Those you can adapt. Many of the team members, came from they were career changers. They came from a non cyber background. They wound up being, some of our best contributors in the history of the team. So, we welcome all and like I said, cyber security, it is not a place where there's a lot of barriers.
So, if you are motivated to do it, then, you can make it and we and we have six different ways to get on the team. Other universities. I talked to someone at a different university. You know, they have a waiting list and, only a certain number of people can be on the main team.
We we don't have that. We have to kind of go with the flow because, you know, on a weekend, one of our, students might be working, or they might be in Japan or or something else, where they can't compete somehow. So we we have to kind of go with the team that's available if it's a weekday competition or a weekend local, etc. we have an ability to give everyone on the team an opportunity to compete at some point.
So we don't have the restrictions that some other universities do because, we're not traditional and everyone's not available all the time. People have kids, people have spouses, people have military, duties that they have to take care of. They they don't all have, you know, a lot of free time that might be, that you might be afforded at, at a traditional university in a traditional, you know, age bracket.
So.
Lauren
Great. Thank you for joining us today, Jesse. Totally loved hearing your stories about the cyber team, things I didn't know. And for everyone listening and watching, please remember to like and subscribe to watch more episodes or last year's episodes of Unstoppable Stories on your favorite podcast channel.