Career Update
A Personal Update on My Transition to Education
A Need for Clarification
In my personal life, I have received a lot of confusion and outright bewilderment as to why I am choosing to temporarily transition into secondary education.
As I am relatively public, and this website serves as a sort of refined proof of character—I wanted to dispel the misconceptions and vast mischaracterizations levied against my trajectory.
“WHY!?”
To outsiders, it appears as if I am throwing away a fledgling, long-term career in cybersecurity; that is objectively the furthest thing from the truth.
I had tried for years to enter the cybersecurity market during my time at Weber State University—all to no avail.
Suddenly, my efforts started to rapidly catch up to me, and everything changed once I concluded undergrad.
A slew of job offers, significant recruiter outreach, and several tenured professionals offering referrals—all at once.
What changed?
Absolutely nothing—merely a piece of paper adorning my wall.Consequently, this left me in a state of immense disarray, absolutely appalled—culminating in an arduous, nearly two-month-long period of intense introspection.
What I Realized
I intrinsically, fundamentally disagree with cybersecurity’s current state of rampant credentialism, egoism, nepotism, and overt gatekeeping.
As a person of such impressive credentials (given my age), I never found myself claiming SME-level expertise.
Why must this be such a pervasive issue?I had witnessed this firsthand: plagiarized presentations, falsified credentials, glorifying aims to work for highly unethical corporations, and extreme embellishment to the point of outright deceit.
But it never really "clicked" until just recently.I was faced with an existential, spiritual rot—of which I want no part of.
My Journey
I am not some “prodigy” or “gifted individual”—I am a man who had to earn and fight tooth and nail for everything I have ever achieved.
I entered college with zero plans or in-depth understanding of technology; I was quite infantile, toying with computers as a hobby.
The only reason I even pursued higher education was because I was given a life-defining ultimatum:
- The Air Force
- Vocational School
- Homelessness
I was nearly a high school drop-out at age sixteen—migrating to online education—in hopes of recovering what little I had left.
Even at that moment, I still chose not to do critical homework, contingent upon my graduation, for nearly two years—up until age eighteen.
Abysmal ACT scores and a nonexistent GPA.So you may understand just how discouraged I was—having to construct everything from scratch—by hand.
Without the educational scaffolding or innocence many children hold during childhood.In the years to come, as I received a highly sudden yet continuous flow of praise—I was left stewing, questioning:
What Now?
Service as a Career
I harkened back to my time as an instructor at Ken Garff’s summer tech track—and the countless hours I spent debugging with Smith.
I realized in that moment that my life should be for and in the service of others.I declined lucrative offers, and opportunities, and referrals, and set my sights on pursuing teaching licensure—with an excruciating fervor.
A sharp juxtaposition to my idea of education as a cheap contingency option.To build myself from the ground up, I took a TA position at a local elementary school—with zero understanding of what I’d be doing.
Entering the role was among the most difficult adjustments I had made in my career.
Far surpassing any academic work or position I have ever held.
It has been the most rewarding experience of my life—providing a level of happiness I have never known.
The Future
While I am focusing on adjunct roles at technical colleges in the near future, secondary education gives me an incredible platform.
I am uniquely positioned—attaining invaluable experience while having plenty of time for PhD coursework.
Additionally, I will absolutely continue my contracted network engineering projects—compounding into my aim to do technical consulting.
I am not "ditching" my technical background, but strategically adapting to preemptively advance beyond my years.Professorship is my end goal—building a profile for mentoring lost men in a sea of disillusionment and demoralization.
Hence my desire to become involved with the youth—hopefully, in due time, piloting initiatives to ensure children receive the scaffolding I never had.