Major: Computer and Information Technology
Back in high school, Michael Tse did not think much about college and what he wanted to study.
His brother and cousin felt the same way when they started at College of DuPage, and Tse saw them transfer with definite career plans. He also knew the affordable cost would allow him to take a variety of classes.
During his first year, fairly confident that he wanted to study accounting, Tse took both general education and accounting classes. The first semester was a breeze, but he began to have doubts about his major during the second semester.
“The 8 a.m. classes felt longer and harder to stay awake, the concepts got harder to understand, and the debits started to not match the credits,” he said. “I was at a loss and started to reconsider my major. It wasn’t the professors’ fault—they were all excellent. Instead, my heart wasn’t feeling accounting anymore.”
What he did enjoy was his Computer and Information Science course. His professor, Marci Rakestraw, made him reconsider his career path by promoting both CIS and CIT (Computer and Information Technology) classes, and he ended up pursuing the latter.
“Why computers? Before getting to the CIT courses, I was chronically online on my computer, mainly playing video games,” he said. “But it was not until the second year, second semester that I met the man who is motivating me through the CIT program: Professor Brock Stout! He also has helped many students get involved with CIT clubs and competitions, which there are very few of.”
Tse found out about the National Cyber League through Stout. When the spring 2024 competition arrived, he decided to compete and took advantage of the resources Stout provided, including in-person and online meetings, the latter led by a former cybersecurity student, Mark Littlefield.
The professors are passionate about their fields and truly care about their students.
Michael Tse
“Before entering the competition, I barely knew anything about each category NCL was testing on: Open-Source Intelligence, Cryptography, Password Cracking, Forensics, Log Analysis, Network Traffic Analysis, Wireless Access Exploitation, Scanning and Reconnaissance, Enumeration and Exploitation, and Web Application Exploitation,” he said. “NCL provided The Gym, a place where participants could practice each category before the actual competitions. I learned a bunch from not only The Gym but also meetings with Mark.”
Although Tse was nervous, his score started to plateau after the first day. Challenges went from taking less than 30 minutes to more than three hours to solve. For the rest of the competition, he sat at his computer testing and researching tools that could help him solve the challenges.
“After the competition ended and the tentative score board was released, there I was, username ‘Bananabread,’ and my rank 132. Honestly, at first I was like, ‘Oh OK, rank 132, I didn’t get Top 100.’ It was when I brought it up to Professor Stout the following day that I realized I did super well, outperforming Mark Littlefield’s score, which was the previous highest ranking from COD.”
In fact, his final confirmed placement of 135th out of nearly 7,400 participants put him in the top 1.8%. He also was part of a five-member team from COD that placed 104th out of 4,212 teams, which ranked them in the top 2.5% nationally and was the highest scoring team in COD’s history.
“I learned many skills—using Kali Linux to crack password and to filter logs, Wireshark to read network packets, how to manipulate cookies on a website, and many more. The COD classes helped me get a basic understand of the tools I used, and NCL helped test, reinforce and improve my learning.”
Tse’s goals are simple: Earn his associate degree, transfer to Lewis University for his bachelor’s, collect as many CIT-related certificates as possible and get a job that he enjoys. He also wants to finish in the top 100 at the next NCL competition.
As for COD, Tse said it is a great place to explore different career options.
“The professors are passionate about their fields and truly care about their students,” he said. “My advice, not only for CIT students but for everyone, is to connect with your classmates. I may not be the smartest, so all the skills I learned were with the help of others and putting in the time and effort each day to learn a little bit more. If you are going into CIS, CIT, cybersecurity or any related field, participate in clubs and competitions. It is a big help in reinforcing and testing the skills you are learning in class.”
Learn more about the Computer and Information Technology program at College of DuPage