YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – If you want to get an idea of the demand for employees in technology, cybersecurity and computer networking roles, log on to any job site.
Professors at Mahoning and Shenango Valley colleges and universities work to educate students to meet that demand.
Robert Gilliland, a computer science and information systems assistant professor in Youngstown State University’s School of Computer Science, Information and Engineering Technology, teaches cybersecurity.
“It’s actually a practice of protecting systems, networks and data” from digital attacks, he explains.
Many employers need employees with the knowledge and skills to fill those jobs. Gilliland refers to agencies in the federal government that are advertising for such positions and offering high salaries.
“You also have Indeed.com, Glassdoor.com, Dice.com,” he says. “Those will show you the benefits of those jobs out there and the salaries because everybody’s becoming dependent on technology and computers and information…”
Large and small companies, financial and educational institutions, governmental entities and health care providers all rely on technology. And they all need personnel to safeguard data, set up and maintain networks and perform other high-level technical tasks.
Need for Security
Thomas Dulaney, associate professor of math and computer science at Thiel College in Greenville, Pa., agrees.
“If you are a business with a computer system, somebody better know something about security,” he says.
But in-demand technology careers go beyond cybersecurity.
“If you’ve got a server and you’re handling a lot of incoming and outgoing traffic, you probably need somebody running the system,” Dulaney says.
Security may fall to that person as well. But many businesses opt to outsource security to companies that specialize in it, he adds.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook reports about 317,700 job openings in computer and information technology annually through 2034. The median annual wage was $105,990 in May 2024, according to BLS.
Abdu Arslanyilmaz, the director of YSU’s School of Computer Science, Information and Engineering Technology and a professor, says networking, cybersecurity, data engineering that is related to artificial intelligence, software development and multimedia and web technologies are the broad categories of careers available to students enrolled.
“Those are the areas, but the titles change,” he explains. “Every company has a different title for possibly the same type of job that they will be doing at that company.”
One skill they share is problem solving, Arslanyilmaz says.
The school includes the computer science and information technology departments. In computer science, analytical skills and an aptitude for conceptual thinking are key, so a mathematical background meshes well. That’s not as integral to information technology though, which offers concentrations in cybersecurity, networking, database/data engineering, software development and multimedia/web.
To ensure students are prepared even as technology constantly evolves, faculty work to assure materials stay up to date, the director says.
“Another thing that we do specifically with information technology – computer science is more conventional – but especially with information technology, we align some of our courses to industry value certificates,” Arslanyilmaz says.
Students take courses in the core, pick a concentration and take advanced courses in that concentration. Classes in the networking concentrations, for example, align to the Cisco Certified Network Associate, or CCNA, certificate.
Other courses align to certificates in cybersecurity, database foundations and other areas.
“Each one of these are highly valued certificates in the industry,” Arslanyilmaz says.
Database engineering is related to artificial intelligence and includes classes in data science and machine learning, cloud computing, biometrics and artificial intelligence in game design.
“They can take these classes if they take data engineering as their concentration to advance their knowledge and skill in AI,” Arslanyilmaz continues.
Before students take those classes, they complete core courses.
“In the core, they are prepared with the foundational skills and knowledge in cyber security, in databases, in networking, in software development or programming…,” he says.
YSU programs offer associate through graduate degrees in several technology disciplines.
Kent Trumbull
William Reed is an information technology associate lecturer at Kent State University at Trumbull in Champion, Ohio.
“As a whole, our program is fairly all encompassing,” he says. “We prepare students to start out in it, perhaps as help desk support people, if they’re just getting started in a general IT career path. Or perhaps as a security operation Center or SOC analyst, if they were getting started in cybersecurity.”
KSU Trumbull’s program includes a range of students.
“A lot of them are nontraditional students,” he explains. They may be older. They may be already fairly experienced in a career of some sort and maybe they’re looking to just get ahead and advance their career…”
Those students may be training for a mid-tier position, like a systems administrator or security engineer, Reed adds.
“And we also have tracks for software development and teaching students how to code so they might start out as a junior developer, or perhaps, a full developer,” he says.
Cybersecurity Careers
Many seek cybersecurity careers, Reed explains. “They want to get into cyber because that’s where a lot of the jobs are now, and usually those jobs pay pretty well,” he says.
In the early 2010s, companies began taking cybersecurity seriously, Reed explains. More than 15 years later, many of those positions have been filled.
But programs are expanding too.
“And now that we have frameworks and other mechanisms in place to assess our security posture, what we’re finding in these organizations is that there are still gaps that need to be covered,” he says.
The job market has cooled a bit, but those services remain in demand, Reed adds.
Certificates
Todd Jones is a lecturer of computer science and information systems at YSU and teaches information technology-based classes.
“We’re looking at networking, we’re looking at database, we’re looking at cybersecurity,” Jones says. “All of those are kind of my specialty with an emphasis on networking.”
That begins with students earning a certification and building their career path from there, he says.
“The certifications that I based my classes around is the Cisco Networking certification, the CCNA,” Jones explains. “It’s the Cisco Certified Networking Associate, and it is a highly sought after certification”
The security classes at YSU are set up to prepare students for the Computing Technology Industry Association, or CompTIA. That credential is required, for example, for cybersecurity employees of the federal government.
“So, there’s all kinds of career paths for that,” Jones adds. “As far as the title goes, you’d be looking at something like networking engineer, computer networking engineer or computer networking associate,” he says.
But no matter the title, people in IT tend to wear many hats within a company or organization, Jones adds.
The courses he teaches, which span foundational to advanced level, differ from software development because they involve working with technology hands on.
“You’re setting up computer networks, for example, or simulating a lot of this with some of our simulation software,” he says. “And you’re troubleshooting real problems, problems that you should face in reality. That’s the basic idea of it.”
The certifications teach the competencies related to the cybersecurity side and how networks interact.
“It’s like there’s two different sides of cybersecurity,” Jones explains. “There’s the technical side, and then there’s the people and policy side.”
The technical side involves setting up a system directly through networking and the server.
“And then the people side of things is looked at through classes like our information assurance class,” he says. “This is where we teach people to work around things like social engineering and to be aware, basically and realistically.”
That includes educating people about what to avoid, such as downloading an email attachment from an unknown sender.
Major Changes
Zack While earned his bachelor’s degree at YSU and returned as an assistant computer science professor last year after completing his graduate work at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Much has changed since he was a student.
The two data science courses While teaches weren’t offered when he was a student.
“When I graduated, I feel like there was a very small percentage [of students] that did anything with machine learning,” he says. “But last year I had 25 students, and this semester I have 20 to 25 so there’s already been 50-60 students just in two semesters.”
Dulaney from Thiel acknowledges technology is ever-changing, but he says the best approach he’s found is to instill the basics “and not fall for the flavor of the month.”
He’s teaching an introduction to programming class this semester, for example.
“Regardless of what programming language you will use, it hasn’t changed significantly since the beginning of computer programming,” Dulaney says.
He ensures students understand the fundamentals of getting data in and out, processing it, building decision structures and repeating structures and then builds on that.
“The idea is that if you come and you learn something in a computer programming language, it’s going to be the same syntax, the same structure that you would get in any other language,” Dulaney adds.
