 Please introduce yourself. Okay. Hey, so my name is Leticia Corot. I am, I'm a career changer. I was a hairdresser. I still am a hairdresser, but I needed a little something more. And I decided to go into cybersecurity. Excellent. So are you currently studying now? What stage are you in transitioning into a cybersecurity career? Yeah, so at the moment, I am a student. I am studying for actually several certifications. It seems like a lot of folks will just do it all, you know, subsequent. But I find that it's a lot better when you kind of spread out and you look at your content from different angles. So at the moment, my focus is in CompTIA Security Plus. But in the future, I hope to gain a CCIE. And that might be kind of far away, I'm sure, but the Cisco certifications along with the CompTIA certifications are going to be amazing for me and my career, my family. Excellent. And are you studying for these certifications as part of a college program or tell me a little bit about how you're doing that as a self-study? Yeah, so no, I actually am going through a program, which I absolutely love. And what I'm doing is I'm taking the certification course, which would not necessarily certify me, but it definitely gives me the foundational concepts that I need. So why cybersecurity? As you said, it's a bit of a big transition from going from curling hair and working kind of in person with people to going into cybersecurity. What inspired that change? Why that sealed in particular? I noticed that there, actually, I have a friend and my friend was saying, you know what, you're really good with computers. And I was thinking, I just kind of tinker a little bit. But what happens when someone sparks something in you, you wind up feeling this need to discover more. If it's not about yourself, it's about what's out there. So I decided to go out on the internet and I was looking through YouTube and I said, I wonder what people are doing out here in this type of field. And I saw all of this amazing content where people are protecting systems, protecting computers, whether it be behind the router on a land or on a land. I noticed that there was times where some organizations had breaches and I'm thinking, how does that happen? So that curiosity sparked my thirst for more knowledge. Excellent, excellent. And you mentioned to me when we'd had a chance to discuss earlier that you're also creating, going to start creating some content where you discuss tech issues. Would you tell me a little bit about that? Yeah, so what I find is that in this arena of tech, there is not enough education and it's not accessible, especially for people that don't like myself. You don't know anything about technology and the things that you do know it's not, it's so fundamental that it's hard to grasp the concepts. So what I decided to do was launch a YouTube channel that explains in very plain English what some of these concepts are. And I find that building content is, that's a passion, it's fun. Excellent. What's the name of your YouTube channel? My YouTube channel is under my name, Leticia Corot, and the show is called Tish Talks Tech. Excellent. Well, I certainly love to check that out. So have you, so far in your experience as you're transitioning, have you, there's been a lot of talk in the news about how there aren't enough women in tech, how there aren't enough people of color in tech. Have you experienced any difficulties translating kind of your new role into tech, given those barriers or have you, have you found that there are issues with representation or, or anything like that? Can you talk about being a woman of color in tech is what I'm trying to, what I'm trying to get at? Yeah. Without coffee, unfortunately. I completely feel you on that. The tea train has not hit my stop at all. Yeah, so your question is, oh, wow. It can, I could talk about it forever, but I'll make it brief. The bottom line is, we have, we as women have obstacles. And a lot of the times the representation is null. When, as I got into, as I'm traveling through my journey, I found maybe, I don't know, maybe three or four women of color that really have a grasp on technology. And, and for what I do, or what I'm, what I'm learning network security, I found one person that I saw and I said, wow, she's really making moves. That's Erica Cooper. She is a CCIE and a double CCIE candidate. And I reached out to her and she was like, I'm always here to teach a mentor and learn and, and the ladies over at Cisco. They're fantastic. They are really fantastic. You would be surprised at what you what you can accomplish when you have a strong learning team. So my advice to anyone that is looking for any sort of knowledge, it doesn't even have to be tech. This, this is everywhere. Find a strong team, select people that shine to you, look for yourself in that arena. We as women in tech, it's, it's very hard. There's not very many and the ones that that are here. They are working so hard to lay this foundation. Follow the yellow brick road, if you will, for the rest of us. So you have to go out and you have to find it. And so I did forget to ask you what the CCIE stand for. CCIE a couple times. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So a CCIE is a certification that's given by Cisco. And there are, there are a few certifications that people have. Some of them start with like route and switch, which is routing and switching that is making sure that your whole network is fine. And then they go into different routes for CCIE and I want to make sure that I have the correct terminology here. So I'm going to read it. It's a Cisco certification. It is the certified intern, internet work expert. And to get that you have to go through other things. So there's like the, there's the ICD one, which is the first test, if you will, that certifies it that you know a lot about computers. And it's not even a lot. It's just the fundamental things. And then you go through the ICD to which grants you access to being a CCNA after that you try out for or you go for your CCNP, which is the network professional. So CCNA is the associate excuse me and then CCNP is the professional and then you can go after that anywhere. I'm choosing for my lane security, because I want to be able to protect and protect networks and penetration tests, and all those good things that encompass security. I want to protect things. I like to break them and fix them. Excellent. And what about the area you live in? Tell me a little bit about the employment prospects there? Is the tech industry in your area growing? Is it moving? What's happening there? Right. So I'm in Texas. And my area is the Dallas area and tech is booming. It is booming. And the fun thing about this area is that there's so much to choose from. So I have Dallas. I can go down to San Antonio where there is another large tech sector. And then, of course, there's Austin, which is like the melting pot for tech. Everything about tech comes out of Austin. So, yeah, this area, it's great. And the job prospects are plentiful. Excellent. And so, how much longer do you have in your current program and what are your next steps after you finish? Right. So my current program through New Horizons, they give me about five months, which is really, really fast when you think about it. But the thing is, is that with this type of certification, certifications, you are constantly practicing your building networks through Packet Tracer, GNS3, and those are just their builders. You're constantly reading and trying to go to meetups. And so the five months you may think that's not a lot of time, but when you are inculcating yourself with this type of knowledge, that time goes by really quick, really quick. So I will more than likely be sitting for my first certification mid-December. I'll let you know how that goes. I know that you're going to do fantastic. Yes. I know that you'll do a fantastic job. Absolutely. But that's wonderful. This sounds like an excellent opportunity. Very exciting to see that you're embarking on a new adventure with your career and seeing that you've been really thoughtful about creating networks and learning opportunities for yourself as a professional and mentorship opportunities. So this is very exciting. And I'm glad that we had a chance to connect just in time for the end of Cyber Security Awareness Month. So looking forward to that and looking forward to publishing this interview and please do send me the information to your channel. We'd love to link that in as well. Any other questions or things that you want to say, pieces of advice for people who are thinking about switching careers and switching into Cyber Security in particular? Yeah. People that are looking to switch and you want to broaden what you already have foundationally. Let's say that you're a coder and someone that creates websites from code or whatever the case may be, you should discover what's out there. There's so much and all of the technology connects. The Internet of Things, IoT, people use your phone, your washer and dryer, the refrigerator, your car. There's so much that's going on as far as technology is concerned and you just need to broaden out as far as someone like myself. If you are a professional and like for me, I love doing hair. I enjoy the creative process. The thing is, is that, you know, sometimes you want just a tiny bit more of whatever it could be. And for me, it was, man, I wish that I could make an app that I can be able to have my customers go through and say, oh, yeah, I can get this service and that service. And I'll do it at this time. And they call them like to do apps, but I just wanted to do that really. My friend was like, you're really good with computers. Try something new. So that's what I'm doing. I have to, and even if I fail at one point, I have to get back up and keep going. But for those of us that are like me, you have to start discovering. You have to broaden out. And women especially, because there's so much at the opportunities are endless. And when you get into tech, yeah, there are some barriers. However, once you get over the learning curve, the sky is yours. You're flying the plane. It's pretty neat. Excellent. Excellent. I think that's great advice and great encouragement for anybody who's thinking of going from one thing to the next. And it's something that we'll all have to consider at least a few and a few points in our lives. So I'm so glad that we were able to talk about it. Thank you so much for your time. Really excited to be able to chat a bit about this. Since you're going through the computer science programming little shameless plug for Sailor Academy. We do have a group of computer science courses and we have a course that pretty directly links to some cybersecurity based degree programs. We have one on, I'm going to mess up the name. It's our computer science 402 class and I'll get the exact name later. I believe it's, we have one that's computer networks and then there's one on discrete structures that also links in and our courses are free for a nonprofit. But you can use them to study for other parts of your exam or when you're going on to your next exam, but I know whatever resources you pull together, you'll do really well. So I'm very excited to talk about it. Oh yeah, you know, I think one thing that that we all need to remember is that you have to gather resources. And I think that Sailor having the free online courses. I think that that's excellent because you never know where you're going to get that nugget you never know. So I'm actually I'm going to go and check it out because I need to have all the learning resources. And like I said, I believe in having a strong team and if Sailor has that out there, guess who's looking at it. Awesome. Awesome. I will send you the link. Excellent. Well, let's see. Thank you so much again. I do hope that we keep in touch. I'm not in Texas often but if we happen to cross paths or you happen to come back to DC to visit. Let's let's definitely get together. But let's certainly keep in touch. I'm really excited about your new journey. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure. Thank you so much. Pleasure with all mine.