Eight Step Guide On How To Study (as A Third Year Pre-med Student With ADHD And A 4.0)

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~January 2025 Goals~

Finish project for network analytics and troubleshooting class

Read 3 books (2/3 complete)

Restart on applied algebra class

spectrophotometer lab & physical chemistry notes

25 FEBRUARY 2025 | 34/100 DAYS OF PRODUCTIVITY

started the day with physical chemistry lab!

then went to work - waiting on a couple of other departments to send me stuff, so had a chill day

evening bioethics lecture!

had a dance rehearsal after class

then finished a couple of problems for physical chemistry

🎧: everybody else is doing it so why can't we? - the cranberries 📚: ulysses - james joyce (i WILL finish it by the end of the month)

5.13.25 - rant and exam update

i'm currently going insane. i failed my discrete math assessment by this much 👌🏻 last week and i'm knee deep in prep to retake it this week. the problem is i need my apartment to be completely free of any humans besides me and my boyfriend is coming over thursday night because we're flying out super early friday morning to go to a wedding.

basically, i have today to get all of my retake requirements done so i can attempt to take the exam tomorrow or kick the boyfriend out thursday night for a couple hours so i can get a proctor slot. my course end date is saturday and i've extended this end date three times since the start of the semester and i just want to be done with this classsssss. self-studying a subject you are not naturally good at is another type of hell.

on a good note, went to the gym consistently this weekend and went on a very nice walk by the river (pictured above).

will update on monday if i'm still alive or not on a pysch hold from stress :)

~life lately ~

life has been very crazy and so not productive these past couple of weeks. i hit an all time high for burnout this year so I took some time off work *intending* to be productive and do school but I just ended up resting and reading most of the time with some school mixed in.

i've also started a new non-fiction book, adopted a cat, and started tae kwon do classes again. i used to do it when i was younger and got my first degree black belt when i was 14 :) it's somewhat healing my inner child but anything to get out of the house these days.

~2024-2025 moodboard~

this upcoming year, i'm focusing on my career goals, personal wellness, and my spirituality.

the witchy urge to just be naked and swim in a spring under the full moon.

physics grind RAHHHHHHHHH

April 10, 2025

An Introduction to Cybersecurity

I created this post for the Studyblr Masterpost Jam, check out the tag for more cool masterposts from folks in the studyblr community!

What is cybersecurity?

Cybersecurity is all about securing technology and processes - making sure that the software, hardware, and networks that run the world do exactly what they need to do and can't be abused by bad actors.

The CIA triad is a concept used to explain the three goals of cybersecurity. The pieces are:

Confidentiality: ensuring that information is kept secret, so it can only be viewed by the people who are allowed to do so. This involves encrypting data, requiring authentication before viewing data, and more.

Integrity: ensuring that information is trustworthy and cannot be tampered with. For example, this involves making sure that no one changes the contents of the file you're trying to download or intercepts your text messages.

Availability: ensuring that the services you need are there when you need them. Blocking every single person from accessing a piece of valuable information would be secure, but completely unusable, so we have to think about availability. This can also mean blocking DDoS attacks or fixing flaws in software that cause crashes or service issues.

What are some specializations within cybersecurity? What do cybersecurity professionals do?

incident response

digital forensics (often combined with incident response in the acronym DFIR)

reverse engineering

cryptography

governance/compliance/risk management

penetration testing/ethical hacking

vulnerability research/bug bounty

threat intelligence

cloud security

industrial/IoT security, often called Operational Technology (OT)

security engineering/writing code for cybersecurity tools (this is what I do!)

and more!

Where do cybersecurity professionals work?

I view the industry in three big chunks: vendors, everyday companies (for lack of a better term), and government. It's more complicated than that, but it helps.

Vendors make and sell security tools or services to other companies. Some examples are Crowdstrike, Cisco, Microsoft, Palo Alto, EY, etc. Vendors can be giant multinational corporations or small startups. Security tools can include software and hardware, while services can include consulting, technical support, or incident response or digital forensics services. Some companies are Managed Security Service Providers (MSSPs), which means that they serve as the security team for many other (often small) businesses.

Everyday companies include everyone from giant companies like Coca-Cola to the mom and pop shop down the street. Every company is a tech company now, and someone has to be in charge of securing things. Some businesses will have their own internal security teams that respond to incidents. Many companies buy tools provided by vendors like the ones above, and someone has to manage them. Small companies with small tech departments might dump all cybersecurity responsibilities on the IT team (or outsource things to a MSSP), or larger ones may have a dedicated security staff.

Government cybersecurity work can involve a lot of things, from securing the local water supply to working for the big three letter agencies. In the U.S. at least, there are also a lot of government contractors, who are their own individual companies but the vast majority of what they do is for the government. MITRE is one example, and the federal research labs and some university-affiliated labs are an extension of this. Government work and military contractor work are where geopolitics and ethics come into play most clearly, so just… be mindful.

What do academics in cybersecurity research?

A wide variety of things! You can get a good idea by browsing the papers from the ACM's Computer and Communications Security Conference. Some of the big research areas that I'm aware of are:

cryptography & post-quantum cryptography

machine learning model security & alignment

formal proofs of a program & programming language security

security & privacy

security of network protocols

vulnerability research & developing new attack vectors

Cybersecurity seems niche at first, but it actually covers a huge range of topics all across technology and policy. It's vital to running the world today, and I'm obviously biased but I think it's a fascinating topic to learn about. I'll be posting a new cybersecurity masterpost each day this week as a part of the #StudyblrMasterpostJam, so keep an eye out for tomorrow's post! In the meantime, check out the tag and see what other folks are posting about :D

~Saturday, September 7th~

The college student starter pack - tynelol, adhd meds, and coffee at 4 pm. We’re back on a windows computer because my Mac’s screen decided to brick itself :)