Case Study

"When we first entered the CyberFirst Challenge, it was the first time we ever took part in something like that. We had done a few things in our Computer Science class, but nothing like CyberFirst.

We chose to enter because it sounded fun. We were told about the competition in class then we spoke about it on our lunch break and decided it looked interesting.

The best thing about the competition was that it was hosted by Morgan Stanley in their Glasgow City Centre premises. I was great to experience a real workplace environment, and they even served us baked potatoes for lunch!

We really enjoyed working together on the challenges, even though there was only two of us competing against teams of four. We originally had four in our team, but the other two girls were on holiday on the day of the competition, so it was really fun getting to meet girls the same age, with the same interests as us.

We managed to come second in the challenge, which we are so proud of, and it was great to represent our school. We even got congratulated by the CEO of Morgan Stanley and Kate Forbes MSP!

You need to use a variety of skills, like communication skills to work well together, and coding skills to help you in the challenges. We also had to be creative in our approach to problem solving. 

We’ve both decided to take computing science as a subject for S3, to maybe lead into a cyber career in future. I (Eilidh) am keeping my options open for now, but I (Rose) would like a job related to computing science, so a career in cybersecurity would be great."

If you're interested in a career in cyber security, or would like to find out how you can take part in the next CyberFirst competition, visit our cyber security careers section.