Rhandeep Padam - Associate information security analyst

At a young age I had always enjoyed technology. I was fascinated about how things worked and I knew that’s what I wanted to learn at school. The subjects I chose to study were ICT, computing and business studies along with the compulsory subjects - Maths, English and science. Then I carried on studying ICT, computing and business studies for my A Levels. 

After I finished school I went to the University of Wolverhampton to do a degree in computing. My course consisted of two subjects, which were web design and server management. The first year focused on the fundamentals and learning the basics, how to create websites and set up communications with a server. The second year focused on more advanced techniques, such as how to build on the basics of a website we’d learnt the year before and how to link the server and website together.

My third year mainly consisted of my dissertation which was based on event management systems similar to Eventbrite. My dissertation project was a hybrid of 50% research and 50% developing the website. I chose the main focus of the research to be on the security of the website and how to protect it from hackers. I graduated university with a 1^st class degree (1:1).

After I graduated, I decided I wanted a job in web design. However, that didn’t work out as I didn’t have a lot of experience and people with more work experience or qualifications were getting the jobs. So I decided to undertake a master’s degree to improve my qualifications and make me stand out from everyone else.

My master’s degree was in cyber security because I wanted to learn more about the security aspects of IT. The degree covered malware engineering, hosting and network, fundamentals of cyber security and penetration testing. After completing my master’s degree, I graduated with a merit.

The first job I got was at Nottingham Building Society as an associate information security analyst in the IT and change department and it was actually the first job I applied for after finishing my studies. I started in November 2019 and am now coming up to a year. I have progressed a lot since I started out. I was nervous and struggled but now can easily do the things I struggled with and I am improving and learning lots as I go along.

My advice to people starting out in their careers is don’t be afraid to ask for help, you can do anything if you work hard and ask for help where you need it.