Perspective that’s awesome. Congratulation on your Appointments.
You have a very valid question and an important decision to make very soon. So let me give it a shot answering your question since my DS just went through evaluating Cyber Ops in the Army Navy Air Force and Coast Guard meeting with all services in active duty.
It is very clear that Cyber Ops has become very important to all services. All services are investing in Cyber Ops and expanding capabilities and roles. All services don’t have enough enlisted and officers to fill their demand. The role of officer in Cyber Ops is to analyze the threat, strategize, report intelligence to their commands and share intel within the joint command communities including the NSA and other intelligence organizations and with our allies. This is not a secret. What we learned from this interaction, it is actually the enlisted men/women doing the programming and data analyses. Officers for most part work as strategist, policy analyst, and mission managers. Yes there’s probably Officer Programmers but they are more likely also managing other enlisted programmers.
Among the Academies only Naval Academy offer Cyber Ops as a major today. Other Academies offer Computer Science and Cyber Club as the path to Cyber Ops. So if you are seeking dedicated Cyber Ops as an academic major, it is the Navy. One of few SMCs that offer Cyber Ops as major is Norwich. Norwich is DoD approved for Cyber Ops as a Major.
Non of the Ivies MIT Stanford are DoD certified even though they offer certification courses in the discipline. I looked into this because I am taking grad courses in Cyber Ops now through Stanford. And my DS is auditing the same course.
Today, no Academies offer Cyber Ops as a Major except Navy. And USNA has been designated as the National Cyber Ops Center of Excellence with a major investment with secure modern building, a dedicated facility at USNA. So this major and field will get a lot of DoD funding with career mobility. Same is true in the civilian sector with industry expected to grow to $400 billion by 2028. Perhaps other SAs will adopt Cyber Ops too in few years but there’s no discussion on this yet.
Army has slowly adopted Cyber Ops as a career. In recent years, it has branched from Signals with human capital coming from both Signals and MI to fill the demand. Today, Cyber is a branch on its own. Army does not encourage new butter bars to branch directly into Cyber Ops. In fact, most can’t. Most have branch detail to do their Platoon Leader role in Infantry Armor Artillery then transfer to MI or to Cyber Ops after 3 years. Cyber Ops want Captains! MI is the same way. One of my protege in the Army is a Colonel and Commander of a MI Brigade. He didn’t get to do MI until he became a young Captain. Similar now for Cyber Ops. That’s the Army.
Today, we learned that to go Cyber Ops directly from Air Force, you have to be Comp Sci major. But many don’t do that. Many come from other Air Force and Army jobs before going into Cyber. Most people we met in the Army Air Force and Navy non went directly to Cyber Ops.
Air Force and Navy can branch into Cyber Ops upon graduation. But there’s cost to doing this to your career. If you go directly to Cyber, you will not know the real Air Force nor the real Navy. Why, because you lack the field and junior officer platoon experience on ship land and Air. If you start in Cyber that’s your career. Perhaps you can branch into Intelligence since Intel and Cyber work so closely together. But you cannot go to ship air land jobs to command soldiers airmen and sailors. Because you don’t have the relevant leadership experience in other communities.
Cyber and Intel jobs are better met if you have relevant field experience first. So you don’t have to major in Cyber Ops to go Cyber Ops. You can major in anything you like and go Cyber Ops and each service will send you to school to get the technical skills you need to do your job. That’s the current position in the service.
So in our conclusion, and in our decision, my DS will not pick the Academy or college or service for Cyber Ops or for Cyber Career. You pick the Academy or college because that’s where you feel the most affinity and want to build your fraternity. If you choose the Naval Academy, it is a bonus to go Cyber Ops Major. Although nicer to have, don’t think you will get special privileges during your career in Cyber Ops because you took it as a college major since you will have plenty of opportunities to take grad courses on DoD dime while on the job if needed. It is all about how you perform on the job during your career.
Also no guarantee you will remain in Cyber Ops in the military nor in civilian career. Average college students consider changing their majors 2-3 times during college.
I hope this has been useful for your upcoming consideration choosing your Academy. It has been for us.
