In 2020, the world was hit hard by the coronavirus. Yet something many people are not aware of, is that internship opportunities for students also became a premium - and even in 2021 are still difficult to find.
With many companies moving to “a new normal” of remote work this meant some students were no longer able gain internship experience as their opportunities were cut from budgets, or the experiences became entirely remote. As a Penn State Alumni I was inspired to give back to the community and offer a unique internship experience for students to learn penetration testing skills. So, I decided to host an 8-week bootcamp with 10 Penn State students, complete with mock interviews, QnA with industry professionals, and hands-on learning to provide a unique internship opportunity to these students.
In my opinion, a good fit for course materials became the INE Starter Pass (INE | Checkout) and the eLearn Security Junior Penetration Tester certification - eJPT for short (eJPT Certification - eLearnSecurity). Not only would students have a consolidated beginner-level penetration testing course, but they would also receive unlimited lab time, and most of all, come out of the bootcamp with a certification and hands-on experience!
This blog post is going to serve as one of many as we continue with the bootcamp, and I hope that the community enjoys following along with the activities. Every week I will be posting about our activities.
The next post will be about the bootcamp schedule, and how we are fitting the Penetration Testing Student course materials and eJPT exam into an 8 week bootcamp, so that you can quickly pass the eJPT, or to emulate the schedule for your own students.