My name is Ben Elleman, and my STEP signature project was a software engineering and information security internship at the Department of Defense’s National Security Innovation Network (N.S.I.N.). During my internship, I worked on a project deemed important to national security being developed by a government contractor, utilizing both my software engineering and information security skills to help with the security of this project.

         This internship helped me to discover how I can handle autonomy and learn to trust myself and my instincts. In my classes at Ohio State, the classes and curriculum are very regimented and clear. For your homework you have to do X, on Tuesday there will be a lab on Y, for the midterm you should study A, B, and C, et cetera. Given that students usually take classes that challenge them and/or are regarding subjects they have limited familiarity with, this approach is often best for classroom-related work.

  However, at this internship, I was given great autonomy, allowed to determine the best way to improve the national security of the project and act as I see fit. At the beginning of my internship, given that this level of autonomy was novel to me and that I was working with veterans in the field with more years of experience than I have been alive, I was very hesitant to use my talents and often deferred to their judgement.

This all changed one day. When I came in, I learned that another company that we worked closely with had been a victim of a cyberattack. This company would go on to suffer substantial losses due to the attack in the coming times, due to both direct impacts such as lost productivity and clean-up costs as well as costs to their reputation and the efforts needed to reconfigure their security protocols. Shortly thereafter, my boss held a meeting to discuss the importance of security and security protocols in our line of work. During this meeting, he specifically mentioned how my skills, experience, and voice were of great importance and could be utilized to greatly help the company.

  After this meeting, I decided that I would try to do my best work and make my ideas heard, regardless of my lack of industry experience. I actively discussed the importance of security with project leads and developers, and stressed the importance of staying informed with the latest vulnerabilities and attack vectors. Throughout the rest of my time, I was told on a number of occasions that my feedback had contributed to improving the quality and safety of software products. By the end of the internship, I felt that I had truly made a difference and contributed to the national security of our nation. On my last day, my boss had me come in and expressed his gratitude that not only had I been able to improve the security of the company, but on my personal development throughout the internship.

  In my opinion, this change was very important to both my personal and professional life. In my personal life, I have always had the benefit of a wide net of friends and family that I can rely upon when I need them. However, I know that one day I will encounter a problem that I will have to deal with myself, which often worried me. Now, thanks to this experience, I trust that I can handle myself if I ever face such a problem.

In my professional career, the cybersecurity field is very much new. This means that there is often no playbook to follow or person you can ask who knows all the answers. Furthermore, this issue is compounded by the rapid pace at which the industry is developing as our systems get ever more complex and interlinked. Therefore, working with autonomy is an invaluable skill in the field. Due to this fact, I feel that my development throughout this project will greatly contribute to my success in my professional endeavors.