TCC Offering Free 6-Month Cybersecurity Training Program

Lots of people are getting into IT careers right now and Tulsa Community College wants to make it easier by offering a 6-month cybersecurity and data science training and apprenticeship for free. 

The free apprenticeship program has been available for a couple of months and News On 6 talked to one of the students, who says it has helped her a lot. Leah Nash is a part of the program's inaugural class. 

"I had been given a few tasks to work with data and I enjoyed learning how to automate things and manipulate the data in the way I needed to," Nash said. 

She says that experience got her interested in other areas, so the timing of this new program was perfect. Jeremy Wade is the director of the cyber skills center. He says, people will learn a lot in the 24-week training program in the areas of cybersecurity and data science. 

"They're designed to help adults in Tulsa get the skills they need to get in-demand jobs in the tech sector," Wade said. 

The average salary for information security analysts is more than 100,000 dollars a year, which is more than double for workers in most other industries. 

"I decided it would be a really good opportunity to learn something that I enjoyed," Nash said. 

Nash says she's learned a lot and it helped her get a promotion at her job. She says she wouldn't have been ready without this program. She has less than three weeks left in the program and says she's happy she was selected. 

"For me, it's exciting just because so far in my work history, I haven't done anything technical. This is totally new and I'm just excited to get to use these skills I’ve learned," Nash said.

TCC says they encourage Tulsans from all kinds of backgrounds to enroll in the program.

For those who are interested, the next application process will open in August.

For more details, CLICK HERE.