When I first started studying Computer Science at UTS, cybersecurity was an uncertainty and not an ‘end goal’. I was just curious about how computers worked under the hood - something as simple as a few small lines of code could shape entire systems. But as I progressed deeper into my degree, I realised that understanding systems also means understanding how they can break, and how to protect them when they do.
It started pretty casually. I was watching videos about data breaches and ethical hacking, and I remember thinking “this feels like puzzle-solving, just with higher stakes”. Around the same time, I was learning about networks, operating systems, and how data actually moves around. The more I learned, the more I noticed how fragile everything really is - and how much trust we place in the systems that keep our digital lives together.
By my second year, that curiosity had turned into something more structured. I took subjects that covered network security and theory-heavy computing science, and started applying what I’d learned outside class - setting up small servers, breaking them (accidentally, and sometimes intentionally), and figuring out how to fix them again. Teaching at CODE4FUN also gave me a unique angle: explaining coding fundamentals to kids forced me to think clearly about how systems work and how to write out code that’s actually safe and clean.
Right now, I’m still early in my journey. I haven’t done any CTFs or hackathons yet, but they’re definitely on the radar. For now, I’m focused on building technical foundations - understanding systems deeply enough to secure them properly. Every new thing that I learn about computing only reinforces how important these perspectives are.
I don’t know exactly where this interest will take me yet - maybe into penetration testing, maybe policy, maybe research - but I know that it’s a space where curiosity pays off. And that’s what drew me in to begin with!