My family came from China. As new immigrants, they were busy with work and building a stable life. I spent most of my time playing computer games because elementary school was easy and homework only took me a few minutes to finish.
Soon after, I concluded that it took too much effort to play through each game stage, so I decided to take some “shortcuts”. Instead of leveling up, I spent most of my time learning how to hack the game,circumvent rules, and modify programming code. I always beat my friends at online games because of my talent in gaining unfair advantages.
As I grew older, games no longer interested me, but computers sure did.I built and secured my own, even remapping the keyboard layout to make sure nobody could break in. While I learned how to protect my computer I also learned to easily access other computers. For instance, I helped a friend's grandma retrieve a computer password after her deceased husband locked the machine. I also helped classmates access the school's restricted wireless network with their portable devices. I even fixed a client's computer virus problem from miles away via remote administration.
Through these experiences, I realized the vital importance of cyber security in the 21st century world, especially with many people doing online banking and shopping. I could easily take my computer to Starbucks, target people on their laptop across the room, and obtain their personal information via a Man-in-the-middle attack. If even a teenager like me could do it, how much more could a professionally trained attacker do?
With my talent, interest, and integrity, I have decided to pursue a career in computer technology. I want to make great contributions pertaining to networking, information systems and cyber security to our society in future.
