Security News > 2024 > February > Half of polled infosec pros say their degree was less than useful for real-world work

About a quarter of those probed said their higher education was "Not at all useful" for their working life in cybersecurity; 12 percent said it was "Slightly useful;" and 14 percent described it as "Somewhat useful," adding up to 50 percent for the negatives.

On the flip side, 29 percent said their education was "Extremely" useful, and 21 percent said "Very" useful.

Of the infosec professionals with two to five years' experience, just 19 percent feel their formal education was extremely useful or very useful in their day-to-day work, while three-quarters of these young professionals say the theoretical knowledge they got was not useful in helping them fulfil their responsibilities.

Kaspersky said 36 percent of those polled said the highest-level of education they got was in engineering, 21 percent said information technology, 15 percent said computer science, 13 percent said business management, 10 percent said science, and three percent said mathematics or something else.

Almost 40 percent of the polled infosec professionals worldwide said they "Somewhat disagree," "Disagree," or "Strongly disagree" that their college or university professors had real-world experience.

Overall, half of the respondents rated the availability of infosec courses in higher education institutions as poor or very poor, and this number jumped to 83 percent for professionals with between two and five work experience under their belt.

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/07/kaspersky_infosec_cso/