Back to School in Your 50s: Building Cybersecurity Expertise

Returning to school later in life can feel intimidating. For cybersecurity professional Jeff Burnett, M.S. '25, it became one of the most valuable decisions of his career. 

In this episode of UMBC Mic’d Up, Jeff shares why he chose to pursue a graduate degree in cybersecurity while already established in the field. After years working in cybersecurity sales, he realized that understanding the technology behind the conversations would allow him to better serve clients and contribute more strategically. 

Jeff talks about what it was like stepping back into the classroom in his 50s, learning alongside younger students, and tackling technical topics outside his original background. He also shares how the experience strengthened his confidence, deepened his industry knowledge, and helped him better understand the real challenges cybersecurity teams face every day.

If you are a working professional wondering whether going back to school is worth it, Jeff offers practical insight and encouragement from someone who made the leap. Learn more about 

UMBC’s Cybersecurity graduate program: https://professionalprograms.umbc.edu/cybersecurity/masters-of-professional-studies-cybersecurity/ 

#Cybersecurity #CybersecurityCareers #UMBC #GraduateSchool #LifelongLearning #CybersecurityEducation #ProfessionalDevelopment 

Transcript

Dennise Cardona  00:00:00  
Hey, thanks for tuning in to this episode of UMBC Mic'd Up podcast. My name is Dennise Cardona, the host. I am here today with Jeff Burnett. He is a graduate of our cybersecurity program, and Jeff, it is a pleasure to have you here. How are you?

Jeff Burnett  00:00:15  
I'm well. Thank you for for including me. Yeah.

Dennise Cardona  00:00:18  
Thank you so much for your willingness to be here. We love hearing from people in the program, their experience, and so before we get started on the conversation about the program itself, can you just start by telling us a little bit about yourself, your professional background and what led you into this field of cyber security.

Jeff Burnett  00:00:37  
Yeah, I had been in software sales for a long time and always interested in in the security aspects. And so after working with a bunch of different startups over the years, I went over to a company called optiv, which is a reseller of technologies, and that's how I really got into cybersecurity, most of the sales side. So I came to University of Maryland in a different as a different candidate profile, because I'm a salesperson and not a technologist, so but my reason for coming was basically if, if I'm engaging with CISOs cyber security professionals, and I really want to add value to their business strategy, I've got to understand what these technologies do and understand what the engineers are working with. So I realized that just being the sales guy who pushes a product isn't what I wanted to do. And so what the University of Maryland did for me was it gave me the context to understand. You know, if I'm talking with a CISO on identity, I know that I'm talking about security operations. I understand what, what that does, and why, and so also, if I have a client meeting, and my solutions architects call in sick or something happens, yeah, I'm on I'm on stage, so I've got to be able to deliver the messages and have an artic articulate conversation. And so that was why I came to University of Maryland. Yeah, I was a little bit hesitant at first, because I did not come out of a computer undergraduate training. I mean, I was a history major with an MBA years ago, but I was not really much of a computer guy until I got into the sales of it, and that was not a limitation. I mean, there were times in the classes where we were we were doing command prompts, and I was a little lost, but you just hunker down and figure it out. And so that and the struggling is part of the learning process. So it was great experience.

Dennise Cardona  00:02:43  
Yeah, I love that the struggle is part of the learning process, indeed. And it's you know what you said speaks to that whole curiosity mindset that I find fascinating, because it's a lifelong learner. And so here you are. You're in a sales position. You want to you want to know the foundation of what it is, of what the people your your clients, are dealing with on a day to day basis. And so what better way to do that than to go in and have a curious mind and start learning as much as you can about what it is that they are dealing with on a daily basis? That's really cool

Jeff Burnett  00:03:13  
when the industry changes so fast. I mean, two years ago, nobody was thinking about AI. Now it's here. So it was interesting. I was in my 50s, and every in the classes in their early 20s. So it was a different profile too. But that's all. That's all good. You learn from everybody.

Dennise Cardona  00:03:32  
I was in my 50s too when I returned from my graduate program, so I understand that completely. And oh my gosh, you can learn so much from just peers who are seeing the world from a different viewpoint than you did as you were their age and as you are now in a present day. It's important to be able to keep your mind open to learning from all different all different aspects, all different age groups. It's yeah, I think when we when we put ourselves in that seat. We really empower ourselves to bring value to what it is we are doing and putting forth in the world.

Jeff Burnett  00:04:06  
In this cyber security business is such a strange domain because it moves so fast and there are no experts. There can't be any experts. So you have to work as a team, because you're not going to be well. Two years ago, there weren't any AI experts. Now everybody claims to be one. So go, go figure.

Dennise Cardona  00:04:27  
That's right. We're in a totally different landscape now. So you know, many professionals consider going back to school, as you did, but they worry, right? They worry about, how am I going to balance work life and all this coursework. What was that experience like for you?

Jeff Burnett  00:04:45  
My kids were in middle and high school already, so it was easier, I think, than if I had young kids and I had a very patient wife who was but you do it as a family, you've got, I mean, and you have to, so you have to involve your family. Because you're going to be working nights, is it insurmountable? No. And so I started out with just one class a semester. And there are a couple couple semesters I took two. Just pace yourself. I mean, there's no route, there's no race, right? And so you want to and if you take too many, you're going to overload not learn what you want to learn. So, I mean, it's, I wouldn't worry too much about that, you know, and I went on, got the CISSP and the CRISC, and they took some time too. So, but, you know, you, your family just knows. Okay, on Saturday, I'm on, I'm in classes. That's how it is. That's how it is. Yeah, it works out.

Dennise Cardona  00:05:39  
Just curious, that first class that you took, did you go into it feeling intimidated, like, Oh, I'm going to be overwhelmed by this. And then, was it a surprise? The outcome of how you felt

Jeff Burnett  00:05:49  
after it wasn't bad, because you start with the introductions, and they're they're sort of lecture based. The ones that are intimidating are when you start to get on the keyboard and they're like, Okay, you're going to use Wireshark. You can use this or that, or you can edit. And I'm like, Oh my God, and I'm sitting there trying to figure out on, you know, chat GPT, what the stuff does and how it all works. That was hard, I mean, for a guy who doesn't have any programming experience, but again, it's you just gotta you get through it. I mean, there's something to be said for if you're talking to a CISO and you're talking about, you know, firewall rules, and you've actually tuned a firewall, it's like, okay, I know what we're talking about. So, I mean, that's invaluable. Can you

Dennise Cardona  00:06:29  
talk a little bit about the support that you received from your instructors and your peers as well? Well, they're great.

Jeff Burnett  00:06:35  
The instructors are always willing to help. And so they have professional they have careers too. So they're, they're busy, but that's, that's understandable. I mean, you also want them to have careers because they bring a different perspective. There weren't that many team assignments, but when they were, when they were, when we had them, they were all very well, good, very good. Rather, everybody's busy, everybody's professional. When you get to the graduate level, I mean, you've got, it's not like, sort of say the undergrad, where you're just trying to kind of get through the graduate level, Bruce focused, and they say, Okay, I got a day job, or I've got this and that. But in the level of discussion is much higher too, which is good. It's a very positive experience.

Dennise Cardona  00:07:19  
How did your industry experience shape the way you approached your coursework in the program overall?

Jeff Burnett  00:07:28  
Well, I've always been on the sales side, so I'm not as deeply technical, so I had a lot to learn. And if you go in with the right attitude and realize you just don't know everything, and you have certain strengths, and others do, and they don't know everything either. You sort of, each person has their own each person has their own strengths, and so it had up my experience shape it. I mean, you, like you said earlier, you got to be open to learning, because there's so much to cover, and you're not going to master everything. So just get as much as you can and just soak it all in.

Dennise Cardona  00:08:03  
Yeah, you know, that reminds me you can't. So I remember wise words from somebody saying, you can't be an expert in everything. There are some things that you have to rely on other people, and that in this case, it's the the wiseness of the instructors of your peers who are also in the industry, who do the cyber security work and the computer work on a daily basis. And being open to that, I think, is going to it helps set you up for success, because that's the way life is.

Jeff Burnett  00:08:30  
That's and that's the way these projects work. In corporate America, there are no IT projects as one person. You're working with different groups, different constituents, stakeholders, whatever you like to call it these days, you know, a lot of different people, and it's always a teamwork. And nobody succeeds on

Dennise Cardona  00:08:49  
their own. The soft skills are probably paramount to this kind of cyber security work, just like it is to any kind of professional work out there. And this program did that kind of hone in on some of those soft skills,

Jeff Burnett  00:09:02  
it did. And, you know, it's interesting, because I was thinking my I just finished the distributed systems class, and the gentleman who taught it was out of the USDA, interesting guy, I mean, deeply technical. And so you learn something from him, and he has a different perspective. And I did, but it's great people and always the mentality is pretty good.

Dennise Cardona  00:09:24  
Were there any specific courses or projects or moments in the program that really kind of changed how you think about the field of cyber security?

Jeff Burnett  00:09:35  
You know, it's you get such different perspectives from people like, I mean, the gentleman who taught the cyber law class is an attorney, right? And the gentleman who teaches the I mentioned the USDA teacher, and there's another guy who taught a wireless class from who runs, who's the CISO for a law firm and deeply into the federal space. And it's just a lot of different personalities and a lot of. Different aspects, and that's the interesting thing about cybersecurity and also this geography. There's a lot of Fed in this area, and I'm not a federal person, but you're always dealing with that crowd. And so you have to understand what how they think, and how the federal people think is completely different from how the commercial people think, and so is the buying cycles and everything else. So you just learn to deal with with the different mentalities, and you also get an appreciation for just how diverse this field is.

Dennise Cardona  00:10:30  
Yes, were there any moments during the program when you realized, hey, you know what? This is exactly, why I came to school?

Jeff Burnett  00:10:38  
Oh, absolutely. When I'm not trying to sell a security platform. We're doing a risk assessment or this or that in some kind of project, and it dovetails exactly into what we're talking about. Or, you know, one client was interested in looking at at E forensic tools, and so I had a forensic class or software, software, software analysis, assurance, which is Dev, sec, ops. I mean, you know, when you talk of that stuff, it and it applies right back to the coursework, you're like, hey, this is pretty cool. So it's been great.

Dennise Cardona  00:11:15  
Yeah, when you can really bridge the gap between the real world and what you're learning in the classroom, that's that applied type of process, then it feels real.

Jeff Burnett  00:11:25  
Yeah, it's really practical. And you think it's not, and even the, okay, I'm out tuning, you know, firewalls, and is that going to apply? Well, the next thing you know, you're talking to somebody about Palo Alto firewall. Okay, well, I get it.

Dennise Cardona  00:11:41  
So it's interesting. You can speak the language

Jeff Burnett  00:11:44  
and you understand what they're wrestling with. When some guys say, yeah, we've got 1000 rules. We're trying to to tune and we're pulling our hair out, you're like, Yeah, I get that's that's probably pretty frustrating,

Dennise Cardona  00:11:55  
yeah, having as a salesperson, being able to relate to your clients on that level,

Jeff Burnett  00:12:02  
hugely important, because you have an appreciation for just when you're selling the technology and it's supposed to alleviate some of these burdens, and you you see what the burdens are, or you get an appreciation for the identity management, just how complex it gets really quickly, You're like, Oh, my God. Of course, this makes sense

Dennise Cardona  00:12:23  
from your perspective, working in the cyber security sales arena, how important is it for professionals to have that deeper technical or academic foundation in this field?

Jeff Burnett  00:12:35  
You know, I think that's a that's an interesting question that gets batted around a lot. Some people think that the sales is all about running the deal, and that I personally think it's it's about both, and, yeah, you got to be able to control the conversation, but if you don't have the technical level, you're not going to add as much value when when it matters. And so I the mindset that more people should do this in sales, and more people should be honing the broad based, holistic perspective on cybersecurity, instead of the narrow domain expertise. And the way this business is moving so fast, and what you see in corporate America is a lot of consolidation, and they're going to platforms. Okay? Well, if Palo Alto goes out and buys cyber arc, you know now, you know, you got to be able to speak both languages, and you got to understand, okay, data security is merging into cloud security pretty quickly, and there are crossovers there. And so it's, it's really, I think, that, if not now, soon, it's going to really reward people who can speak the whole whole gambit.

Dennise Cardona  00:13:47  
How has completing the program, because you completed it in December of 25 now, how has that influenced the way you approach your conversations now with clients or organizations about their challenges in cyber security.

Jeff Burnett  00:14:01  
Well, you know, it's been a process. I mean, so I don't think that any just completing has really changed that much, because I've been doing this all along for about three years or so, and so it's your confidence goes up because you you know that you can talk about certain things, you know. And if a new technology arises. It's not hard to spin up on it. For example, you know, two years ago, AI came out of nowhere, and everybody's like, Oh my God, we got to talk. I must have read six books on the thing overnight, you know, because it's all of a sudden, it's like, okay, this thing is coming, and we better know how, how it works. Yeah, I thought about getting into a taking a machine learning class, and I haven't yet. I may take that as a as an afterwards, as an alumni, just because there was, there wasn't enough time, but I mean that there's always ways you can improve yourself, and it's interesting to see all these certifications that are popping up online. Hey, be an AI specialist, and I did one with Microsoft. It was, it was a good overview, but it's not going to make you an expert. Okay, you know, and it's interesting to see the marketing speak. Hey, we've got this great AI course. Okay, that's, that's, that's a good overview, but it's, but you're not going to be an AI architect and something like that.

Dennise Cardona  00:15:14  
Yeah, you have to roll up the sleeves and put the work in and do what you're doing, put the curiosity hat on and figure it out.

Jeff Burnett  00:15:21  
And I'm never going to be an architect. I mean, I just, I'm just too old, and I haven't had the experience on the keyboard, you know, I can compete with a guy who's 30 years old, it's about 10 years as an architect, but I don't have to, because that's, that's his domain or her domain, and that's, that's, you know, I'm, I'm the one who sums it up and explains it to the to the business people.

Dennise Cardona  00:15:41  
So that's right, what surprised you most about being a student again at this stage in your career?

Jeff Burnett  00:15:50  
It was funny. I mean, what surprised me? Well, you got to be a little humble, because you're the oldest guy in the room, and it's like and you know, you got to make time for it. I mean, you forget that. You know you can't just breeze through things. This is a new field.

Dennise Cardona  00:16:05  
What advice would you give to other working professionals who might be considering a cyber security degree, but they're not really sure if that's the right move?

Jeff Burnett  00:16:15  
I took about two years to think about what do I do this? Do I do? I do I not. And I ended up contacting the head of the department, said, Look, I'm debating this because I'm a sales guy. And he said, Come on, don't worry about it. And my advice would be, like, it's great knowledge. It's not gonna hurt you, and don't spend two years thinking about it. Just get moving

Dennise Cardona  00:16:39  
right, because two years will go by whether you're doing it or not, and then all of a sudden, if you had just done it when you first started thinking about it, then exactly time goes by thinking

Jeff Burnett  00:16:49  
about it. I should just said, Okay, this is a great idea. Let's go and, yeah, how is any every training is going to help somehow. So don't hold back. Just, just do it. Yeah.

Dennise Cardona  00:16:59  
And, you know, I remember when I That's great to hear. I remember when I first started thinking about going back to grad school in my 50s. I'm like, is this smart? And then I was just, I said, You know what? I'm going to take one class. I'm just going to I felt like I wanted to learn something different, and it was during covid, so I wanted to get my mind off of all of that stuff. And so I just took one class, kind of like, dip my toe in the in the big pool of the field, and, God, I loved it. I loved being a student again.

Jeff Burnett  00:17:27  
You know, I took this semester just to kind of focus on other stuff, but I'm probably going to end up taking alumni classes because they're great and it keeps your skills sharp. Yeah, like that machine learning class. I can figure out what we're doing here.

Dennise Cardona  00:17:40  
That's right, exactly. Find things that pique your interest, that are really, really interesting in the subject matter that you're the industry, the subject matter that you're interested in learning about, and dip your toe in the pool. Absolutely. So Jeff, now that you're graduating, how do you see this degree shaping the next chapter of your career, I think

Jeff Burnett  00:18:02  
it just makes you much more valuable to your clients, and it makes you and you become, if you're committed to a field, it just kind of deepens your commitment to it and you. And when you start learning something, it's always interesting. It's just just one thing leads to the next, you know, and I mentioned that, you know, we're looking at all this changes in AI, well, we got this crazy geopolitical system right now, and so we're going to be looking at cyber war, and that's probably the next thing we're going to be reading about. And when you pick up the newspaper and you can say, Okay, well, you know, if we just are now engaged with Iran, and there's worries about cyber risk from Iran, what does that mean? And if you've taken some of the classes like this, the cyber war class at UMBC, and really digs into this kind of stuff, and you realize that there's a lot to think about, and it's pretty interesting.

Dennise Cardona  00:18:54  
Absolutely, I love to ask this question, I guess, a closer what. What is your greatest takeaway?

Jeff Burnett  00:19:00  
I should have done this long ago, really. I mean, it's great, it's I really had a great experience, and I learned a ton, and I hope to continue learning a ton, because UMBC is a great, great school, and the people are great, the professor is great.

Dennise Cardona  00:19:19  
I should do that long ago. Thank you so much, Jeff for being here. If any of

Jeff Burnett  00:19:24  
the prospective people want to get my opinion that you're welcome to connect them to me.

Dennise Cardona  00:19:29  
Awesome. Are you on LinkedIn? Is that where they can find you? Jeff, thank you so much for your insights, for sharing your experience. It's been wonderful in

Jeff Burnett  00:19:36  
No, I think it's a great program. I really do, huh? And

Dennise Cardona  00:19:39  
I want to thank everybody for tuning into this episode, and if you'd like to learn, if you'd like to learn more about our offerings, just click the click the link in the description.