Hamza R

I have always had a love for problem solving since I was a kid. I spent years trying different ways to apply myself in that area, but nothing ever stuck. This was the case until I found CyberPatriot which is a cyber security competition that I did with a team for seven years until I graduated high school.

It was a club that participated in the international competition, but I only joined to compete and skip a day of school with my friends. As I was required to gain experience on the topics to compete, I discovered how fascinating the topic was and how much there was to learn. It consisted of teams who worked to secure an operating system that has been compromised by hackers. The part that made it unique from other events I had done was that there would always be new challenges that were nearly impossible to prepare for and required research and thought in the time constrained environment. Being pushed to succeed in a new situation every time was what led me to do the club for seven years.

The same skill of flourishing in strange environments has helped me many times including the first week of college where the courage I had developed showed through the conversations I had. Additionally, I understood through the competition that another interest lay outside the club where I built programs that could do parts of the competition (which was allowed). I decided to pursue electrical engineering because I realized that it included problem solving and building projects similar to my experiences in CyberPatriot.

CyberPatriot taught me how to carry myself in unfamiliar situations and figure out solutions along the way. Currently, I attend the University of Georgia and hope to never stop challenging myself.