Popular cybersecurity summer camp underway in Decatur

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (WAFF) - Dozens of students from the Tennessee Valley are spending time this week at Calhoun Community College in Decatur. They’re participating in the school’s first week-long cybersecurity summer camp.

Monday kicked off two weeklong summer camps at Calhoun Community College in Decatur. WAFF got to check it out and learn about why it is so successful and why so many kids have signed up.

The camp has been booked for several weeks.

“Really, the primary goal of this camp is to expose kids who might not have a lot of exposure to it otherwise. For a lot of kids, they are not aware of these opportunities,” said Dean of Business and Communications Systems James Payne.

The cybersecurity camp is hands-on. The high school students spending their days in computer labs are learning from teachers and guest speakers who currently have the job they want.

“What I wanna do when I grow up, is become a software developer. I thought this would be a good start for me to get to know the fundamentals of cybersecurity, how things work, and what kind of things I’m going to be dealing with when I go into the workforce,” said student Aparna Bhooshanan.

“I would like to go into the music industry. I’m here today to learn how to protect my social media accounts and protect my websites, and kind of just an overall way to learn about the cyber world,” said student Madison McCoy.

The educators at Calhoun Community College hosting the Cyber Security Summer Camp say the skills these students are learning in STEM fields will help them succeed later in life.

“The demand for those jobs are strong, it’s rising. I try not to make predictions as an economist, but I can predict that the demand for STEM jobs is not going to diminish,” said Payne.

Based on the success of the weeklong summer camp that started Monday, July 19th, next year they’re going to have a total of six summer camps.

There’s definitely a need, there’s definitely a lot of students interested and definitely, you can get yourself a good job by learning some of these skills.