Cyber Clinic – Student Information

Background: Coastal Virginia Center for Cyber Innovation (COVA CCI) established a pilot cybersecurity internship clinic to serve small businesses and mission-based organizations in the community and to improve experiential learning capacity in cybersecurity education. You have an opportunity to have an experiential learning experience as a consultant providing information to a small business /small government client. There will be support provided to you and available by both ODU faculty and an external partner. The external partners will come from a government or industry background. Students applying should be undergraduate or graduate students from Coastal Virginia higher education institutions, including community colleges and 4-year universities.

The objective of this clinic is to provide cybersecurity awareness and services (education, risk management posture) to client organizations within Hampton Roads while providing an experiential learning opportunity for the students participating in the program as cybersecurity interns/consultants. Specifically, this clinic targets those client organizations that do not have resources for a strong cyber presence (primarily small businesses and public agencies) and who would find value in gaining knowledge of cybersecurity through cybersecurity awareness and services.

This 15-week program will be offered during the fall and spring academic semesters. During the program, students will receive training on different cybersecurity modules, and design thinking before their interview with client organizations. The students will work in teams under the supervision of ODU faculty. The team will provide service to the client in one or more areas of cybersecurity network defense, cybersecurity policies and procedures, cybersecurity training for employees, SWOT analysis, cyber risk assessments, and/or cybersecurity best practices. 

Tentative Schedule:   You will be enrolled in the clinic program to complete an experiential learning opportunity during one semester (15 weeks). This is an in-person program and you need to plan to work approximately 10 hours per week and class is scheduled on Tuesdays/Thursdays from 1:30 – 2:45 pm.

The first four weeks of the semester will include training modules on design thinking as well as defensive measures to improve critical urban infrastructures.

For the next three weeks of the semester, you will work in teams under the supervision of our industry partner, Valor Cybersecurity as an intern, and they will provide you with hands-on experience to assess the risk of a small business.

During the remaining eight weeks, you will be organized into a small team and matched with a clinic organization which doesn’t typically have a budget for cybersecurity measures and you and your team will provide services to these clients. The services you may provide are cybersecurity network defense awareness and services, including policy and cyber education/training, SWOT analysis, and a risk management evaluation for these clients.

This is a paid experiential learning/internship program. As an undergraduate student, you will receive $2250. 

You will be registered in a special session of CYSE 368.