Jesse Schibilia

So after a frustrating eight month period of looking for a place to start my career, I’ve finally landed myself a full-time position.

As of December 1st, 2006, I am the newest Instructional Designer at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey.

This coming Monday, I will be representing Rutgers University at the Sakai Conference in Atlanta, GA.  It is going to be my first professional conference so I am of course very excited.

I am planning on relocating to Piscataway, NJ as soon as possible.  No more hour commutes for me!

I am still taking on challenges in the Office of Instructional and Research Technology at Rutgers University. I am getting more involved in the bug tracking process for Sakai. I am now a member of the international Quality Assurance working group for Sakai. I am in the process of verifying fixes that have been put in place for the release of the upcoming version. Closing bug tickets on an international level makes me feel very good about myself.

IT folks that are coming out of school should definitely try to volunteer their time to a well-organized open source community. I have learned so many different aspects of application development in the past few months. The Application Development Life Cycle has many parallels in other areas of IT and my experience with it on this project has been very educational.
I have also been charged with taking a look at the local CSS for the release of the next version. Rutgers wants to be ahead of the game when it comes to developing the next round of help documentation where we will most likely need a lot of new screenshots. If we can develop that documentation well before the release, that means less headaches come deployment time.

I am working to complete my Rutgers University IT Certification. While it has no validity outside of the University, I am interested in any supplemental education that I can get from the school. So far, the program has been very good. This morning I completed a class titled ‘Setting Objectives and Analyzing Risks’. It was a good refresher course for a lot of the research that I have already done in Risk Management.

Yesterday, OIRT attended the Rutgers President’s Award Ceremony. We were nominated for the Bridge Award which is for departments or groups that show extraordinary service to the University. We set up a table to talk with the folks there about Sakai and what it is we do. Here is a shot of our booth and the team, complete with chef hats (an homage to Hiriyuki Sakai, for whom the CMS is named).

So much has gone on in the last month or so that I haven’t had time to sit down and sort out my thoughts.

In July, I took a job at Rutgers University in the Office of Instructional and Research Technology. I am working on the Sakai Project. Sakai is an open source course management system similar to WebCT or eCollege.

For approximately five weeks, I worked to develop a series of technical documentation to help our users understand how Sakai works. It was a great experience that let me learn the insides of Sakai. Click here to see the web version of my documents.

Now that I have ostensibly completed that project, I am working on user support for Sakai. For the last few weeks, I have been learning JIRA (the bug tracking system that the Sakai Project uses), and OTRS, our local user support ticketing system. I have also been taking help desk calls. I am learning a lot and enjoying what I am doing. I recently tracked down a bug that was affecting how users were uploading files to the system. I tracked the bug all the way from taking the symptoms from the user, testing the behavior, reporting to the developers, and working with the CTO of Rutgers to deploy the code fix that will go into effect tonight. Seeing the entire process was a great experience and I thank my supervisors for giving me this opportunity to learn.

The Office of Instructional and Research Technology happens to share an office building with the Rutgers Information Protection and Security. I have been learning from some of the individuals here, taking any chance I can get to speak with them about my interests in security. They have given me a lot of great resources and guidance as I pursue my goals in information security.

I will be starting on my Rutgers IT Certification tomorrow. There are some parts of this certification that involve information security, so I am really excited to start. I will also be learning UNIX during three of the workshops. I have been offered so many learning opportunities here. It has been a great place to start my career.

I will be attending a Career Day this Friday. There will be a lot of companies there, so I hope to make a lot of good contacts. Now that I have some solid work experience, I know that I have something to offer a company.

I have an interview coming up with a large auditing firm. I am really excited because I will be interviewing with the Information Risk Management department. I have been doing a lot of research in preparation for the interview and I plan on knocking this one out of the park.

I have been living at home for the last month or so and I am still searching for the right job. I am still looking at several very presitigious firms around New Jersey. Things look very promising, but I hope that I get a job soon because my mother works me like a slave as compensation for living here. So far I have:

• Cleaned the gutters
• Sanded and refinished a rocking chair
• Pressure washed, stained, and sealed the back porch
• Edged around the house
• Spot patched a large stone back into a column
• Cleaned out the garage

The list is sure to go on. If I don’t get a job in IT, I suppose there is always manual labor…

I recently interviewed for a position as a Linux SysAdmin. My experience in Linux is limited. I have only spent about 10 hours on SuSe Linux on my computer at home. I have done a considerable amount of work on LAMP servers and in shell accounts in classes. I think that my inexperience in Linux came across to the interviewers as disinterest.

I contacted some folks at US Fencing about developing a website where athletes coming out of college can connect with individuals (parents or other athletes) in the community who are in a position to offer jobs. The idea stems from my problems trying to find a job without an internship on my resume. The idea was received well by a few of the executives at US Fencing and they want to talk with me further about it. I have to develop a business plan to see if it is sustainable as a non-profit service to the community, but I think that it would be a great project for me to run.

This is the first post in what will hopefully be many regarding information security. As previously mentioned, my interview with an Information Security division is fast approaching. I was thinking today about what actually makes me interested in information security and why I don’t think I will lose interest in the subject. I would like to share some of my thoughts.

1. I have actually read some really good books about information security. Neal Stephenson’s novel Cryptonomicon is an amazing book that centers around code breaking during World War II. Cryptography during this time was essential during the war. Potential reactions to a broken code were taken very seriously. If Germany, for example, realized that their efforts were being thwarted too often, they might change the encryption key, fearing that their enemies were intercepting and decrypting their transmissions. If they did this, it meant alot more work for the Allied Forces to decrypt any new code. The Allied Forces had to pick carefully which transmissions they reacted to; lives hung in the balance. This was an exciting book by a great author. I am in the middle of Snow Crash, one of his other works. I highly recommend his books to any other geek out there.
2. The Cuckoo’s Egg by Cliff Stoll is another exciting book regarding information security. I believe it takes place at UC Berkley in the 1970’s. The main character in this story is working at an astrophysics lab during the earlier times of the Internet when it was primarily used by educational and government institutions. A small accounting error in one of the log files clues him to a hacking attempt and he spends the next several years of his life trying to track down the hacker on the other end of the line. I read this thriller in two days, it really kept me hooked.
3. The market for information security is so hot right now. There are a lot of holes out there that need to be fixed or watched. People need assurance that their data will not be compromised. Any company doing business on the web cannot afford to lose their data in an attack. Some of the fines for negligence with credit card data, for example, are in the hundreds of thousands of dollars per incident. Even internally, companies need to be careful how their employees handle customer data as well as company secrets. There have been a few companies in the recent past who have caught a lot of flak for an employee losing a laptop with customer data on it. Companies need to set strict policies regarding how data is handled.

So I guess you can say that I am attracted to the opportunities within the discipline. I can see myself concentrating on policy development later on down the line. It seems like I will be doing a lot of auditing early on to get my feet wet. I can’t wait until I get my first certification.

I may soon be gainfully employed! I am interviewing with a company’s Information Security division next week, and if all goes well, I could be learning network forensics by the middle of June! Wish me luck, the interview is June 1st.

It’s been a long time since my last post and you can attribute that to my first job interview. My intent in creating this blog was to give myself a means to become an authority (or as close to an authority as a student can become) on web trends. This is what my major interest was going through my IT program here at Rutgers. It’s great to be part of the trends as they happen. The world of web development is still so nubile that anyone can become famous with a simple, great idea. These ideas are popping up all over the place, and that is what I enjoyed learning and writing about.

With my recent job interview at a networking company and the promising future it holds for my career, I seem to have lost some of my interest in the world of web trends. I find myself learning alot less about the trends, and alot more about how I can get my CCNA. I ordered a book on Amazon last night: “CCNA for Dummies.” I seem to be some type of fair-weather fan. Originally, I put all my money on web development. I thought that my best bet would be to find myself a really cool design firm, meet a guru, and do some great work. The job market is doing well for this type of job; I would have no trouble finding this type of employment. So why am I so easily dissuaded when a job interview comes around?

I didn’t even get the job. I am supposed to contact the CEO later on this month about my graduation situation. If he still has room for me, he may bring me on board. I am not a definite hire, so why do I look away from what I know best? I have countless books on web development and design on my shelf. This is what I have put my focus into for the last few years.

Even now, in my new found enthusiasm for networking, I have applied to another job. Yesterday, I applied for the Information Management Leadership Program at GE. (IMLP @ GE) This is apparently the best program of its kind, and GE is a great company to work for. Since yesterday, I’ve been souped about this program, and I now look at the networking job as my “safety.”

I think my “career search ADD” can be attributed to the prospect of a greater career. With web design, I feel as though there is a limit to how high I can go. With the networking career, there seems to be a very defined career path to follow with more prestigious endpoints. The market is also very good for this type of job. The IMLP trumps them all. This program is a fast track to a great career, possibly leading to a CIO or CTO position. I really enjoyed learning about leadership last semester. “Leadership in Electronic Environments” with Dr. Ralph Wyndrum was my favorite. I actually enjoyed reading the books that he prescribed. (”Leadership” by Rudy Giuliani and “Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance” by Louis V. Gerstner, Jr.)

Who knows, maybe you’ll find me in a large, corporate setting sometime soon.

I went to my very first job interview today.  The interview was for a junior technician position at a small networking company in Central Jersey.  I came away from it feeling very positive about the company and about my chances of getting the position.

They are looking to hire right away, but because I am still in school for this last semester, I can’t start full-time until May.  I would just be learning the ropes for the first several months, so I think that I can still do that part-time until I am done with school.  The advancement opportunities look great.  Networking and security are so hot right now.  I feel kind of bad stepping away from my focus in web design, but I think that I can bring that to the table as an asset to the company.

This job would be just perfect for me, because it gives me an opportunity to learn the trade.  I haven’t had the chance to do that in the last five years because of fencing.  Normally, kids in my major take a job on campus, administering the networks that cover the school.  I never got that opportunity.  This would be so perfect because I would learn something that will offer me a great career.

There is no doubt in my mind that I will eat this stuff up.  When I get focused on something, I live in it.  They will be lucky if they decide to hire me.  I look forward to the final interview next week.  I impressed the CEO today.  I have to impress the head of services next week.  It’s in the bag.