Why I chose cybersecurity, what fuels me every day, and how a background in emergency medicine shaped the way I approach this work.
I didn't start in tech. I came from EMS, where things break in real time and people depend on you to figure it out fast.
That mindset carried over naturally. Instead of responding to medical emergencies, I'm now focused on preventing and responding to technical ones. Systems fail. People still depend on them. That part never changes.
Cybersecurity made sense to me because it's about staying ahead of problems instead of reacting after the damage is done.
I like figuring things out when there isn't a clear answer. I don't mind getting stuck, and I don't panic when something doesn't work the first time.
Right now I'm building that skill set through labs, certifications, and real experience. Since January, I've been interning as an IT student under the head of IT at Fayetteville Occupational Medicine, which has given me a look at how systems actually run day to day.
I'm not interested in just learning concepts. I want to be the person who can walk into a problem and work it until it's solved.
Growing up on a farm and working in EMS taught me how to handle responsibility early and stay steady under pressure. When something goes wrong, I focus on what needs to happen next.
That carries into everything I do in tech. Whether it's troubleshooting, learning something new late at night, or working through something I don't understand yet, I stay with it until it makes sense.
That consistency matters more than anything else.