Cybersecurity demand gives TSTC student options

(HUTTO, Texas) - Adair Briones knows which career path he wants to travel. And with just over a semester left in his college education, recently he was fielding multiple offers to get there.

Briones is pursuing an Associate of Applied Science degree in Cybersecurity at Texas State Technical College's East Williamson County campus. He attended a TSTC job fair in Waco last month and left with multiple interviews scheduled.

"I interviewed with Total Site Solutions, and they offered me a job on the spot," he said. "I asked for some time, though, because I still had an interview pending with T.E.A.M. Solutions LLC."

Total Site Solutions is a company in Round Rock that helps businesses acquire and deploy high-performance computing infrastructure and software. T.E.A.M. Solutions LLC is a company based in Waco that specializes in providing custom energy management and building automation solutions.

Briones had a tough decision to make.

"I went with the position with T.E.A.M. Solutions LLC in the end," he said. "I want to be somewhere I can grow. I thought about what I want to do with my AAS, and I want to be a software engineer. After connecting with the project manager, they seemed like the better fit for what I want. It's also closer to home."

Briones lives in Austin, but he grew up in Corsicana. He is looking forward to the changes that the spring semester has in store.

"I'm transferring to the Waco campus to finish my degree while I'm working," he said. "I'm going to stay with my family at first because I start the job Dec. 2. I'm starting as a security technician trainee, but they said if I show I can work independently that I could be a security technician in just a few months."

Briones said his future was uncertain when the fall semester started, but now he is ready to keep pushing forward.

"I wasn't sure I was going to be able to start the semester because of financial reasons and was looking at construction jobs to save money to come back to school," he said. "In three months I got a Pell Grant, a scholarship and a job in my field."

Cybersecurity is one of TSTC's performance-based education programs in which students can move through their training at a flexible pace.

TSTC offers an Associate of Applied Science degree and certificates of completion in Cybersecurity, and an advanced technical certificate in Digital Forensics Specialist, at its East Williamson County, Fort Bend County, Harlingen, Marshall, North Texas and Waco campuses, as well as online.

Spring registration is currently underway. For more information, go to tstc.edu.

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