Unit 10 - Recap and Final Project

Overview

This final unit serves as a reflection point for the course, providing students the opportunity to step back, assess what they've learned, and think deeply about how these skills apply to real-world systems and career goals.

Unit 10 is less about introducing new tools or frameworks and more about consolidating your knowledge into a cohesive security engineering mindset. Whether through discussion posts, project finalization, or self-assessment, this unit is designed to help you articulate your growth and prepare to present yourself as a capable security professional.

Learning Objectives

  1. Reflect on key topics covered throughout the course and identify strengths and weaknesses.
  2. Practice articulating technical security concepts and processes in your own words.
  3. Prepare for technical interviews or resume reviews through self-explanation of security workflows.
  4. Finalize and polish your capstone project deliverables.
  5. Connect course topics to real industry expectations in security engineering.

Relevance & Context

Cybersecurity isn't about memorizing tools -- it's about learning how to think like both a defender and an attacker.
By this point in the course, you’ve explored threat modeling, auditing, configuration management, logging, and more. This unit challenges you to connect the dots.

Real-world roles demand not just technical skills, but also the ability to communicate your reasoning, defend your design decisions, and think critically under pressure.

Reflection helps you distill your experience into something actionable and transferable -- whether you're applying for jobs, building infrastructure, or consulting on hardening strategies. It can also help you determine where your weak points are and what you need to spend more time on learning.

Prerequisites

To make the most of this unit, students should:

  1. Have completed or attempted all prior labs and worksheets.
  2. Be comfortable referencing course topics such as logging, STIGs, monitoring, automation, and baselining.
  3. Be prepared to synthesize and summarize technical content in their own words.
  4. Have begun (or be close to completing) their final project documentation and diagrams.

Key terms and Definitions

This unit's terms and definitions are to be drawn from the lesson or recording.

As you watch the recording, take note of terms you're not familiar with and take the time to research them.