UNLV’s launch coincided almost exactly with a ransomware-based cyber incident that surfaced Aug. 24 and disrupted many state services, prompting a multiweek recovery effort. UNLV’s program was already in a working relationship with Nevada state government before the August incident, with a statewide security operations center planned for UNLV’s campus to be staffed by students and local professions. But according to Gregory Moody, director of cybersecurity degree programs at UNLV, cybersecurity events like this place more urgency on the matter and nudge students toward the field.
“I think interest is totally driven by the fact that it’s prevalent in the news,” Moody said. “You can’t go a single week without seeing some large breach, and how most kids pick a major is strongly influenced by what they’re aware of and by their parents.”
Moody said the program was initially projected to see 35-50 students enrolled in the first cohort. In actuality, there are 275 pre-majors enrolled.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects employment for information security analysts will grow 29 percent between 2024 and 2034, and workforce trackers show hundreds of thousands of cyber-related job openings nationally. The mismatch is one of the reasons UNLV chose to design the degree.
UNLV’s program grew from employer requests in the 2016-17 school year for more trained cyber practitioners. The school built a master’s program first because it required fewer resources than an undergraduate buildout. Still, it took two years to launch.
The master’s degree is a joint effort between the Howard R. Hughes College of Engineering and Lee Business School, and Moody said its format helped UNLV to discover what needs to happen to create a program like this, from creating accounts to developing courses.
“We didn’t have a structure in place where we could even have a program that existed across two colleges at the graduate level,” he said.
To scale up to an undergraduate program, UNLV had to design new curricula to suit an interdisciplinary focus. While the business and engineering schools previously had a few cybersecurity course offerings, Moody said none of the previous courses are included in the degree requirements.
Courses were developed in-house with UNLV’s online instructional design team rather than an outside online program management service. Most of the courses were built from scratch, and the team landed on a few pillars to make the cybersecurity degree worthwhile.
The first of these was embedding industry certifications. First-year courses are aligned to vendor certifications, like CompTIA, so students leave with the credentials employers commonly request. Hayden Williams, a senior lecturer hired to teach courses for the new program, came from corporate incident response. He said the certifications open doors for internships and hands-on experience even before students graduate.
Faculty also ensured that AI and machine learning were baked into curriculum.
“Previously, creating a good malware took maybe a week, maybe a couple of weeks. Now, every day, every hour, people can make a really good malware [using AI],” Yoohwan Kim, professor of computer science and faculty lead for the program, said. “Without AI, we can’t protect you.”
Moody said AI’s ability to look through lots of data makes it a helpful tool for security monitoring assistance, and a necessary one to keep up with AI-enabled attacks.
Despite the online modality, UNLV also wanted to provide opportunities for hands-on practice, so the program uses virtual lab environments that allow students to practice secure coding and incident response remotely.
The student-run Cyber Clinic delivers security assessments to small businesses and local organizations, helping students gain experience and community members gain access to cyber protections they may not otherwise be able to afford. Student clubs like Layer Zero, which trains for cybersecurity contests, and Women in Cybersecurity also help students build skills and form community.
Moody said community-building like this may help students acquire soft skills needed for cybersecurity positions, like communication and resource management.
“Despite what you'll see on TV, there are some good hard skills from computer science or computer engineering, but that's not all the career pathways,” he said. “Most jobs in cybersecurity are to protect assets. Most of those assets are not owned by cybersecurity. They’re owned by the business leaders or unit leaders, and so they have to work with them, to help them understand the risks, the threats, the vulnerabilities.”
