Cyber Security

In 10th grade, I co-led an initiative to bring the CyberPatriot competition, a national cyber security contest held by the U.S. Air Force Association for youth, to Allen High School. Eventually, over 5 teams comprised of a total 25 students participated and one of the AHS teams placed second in semifinals in the state of Texas. When I started IB, despite the lack of in-person meetings for the cyber security division of Computer Science Club, I continued to participate in Capture the Flag competitions, which were held throughout the year on Tuesday after school.

I participated in the first CTF as part of the Computer Science Club at Allen HS with two of my computer science peers in which I was able to collaboratively solve several of the 11 problems while my peers solved the others. In the beginning, I helped organize our team's strategy to attempt all the problems, prevent chaos, among several other things. To accomplish this, I created a shared document in which each teammate could mark which problem they're working on, to convey that others shouldn't work on the same problem. Since the answers to CTFs are flags and I was the one from the team submitting them, I also allowed the others to paste their flags there so I can submit them. In the competitive environment, I was able to prosper in attempting the problems, using critical thinking skills. We ended up as one of the 2 teams that was able to solve all the problems in the 60-minute time limit and placed 2nd. I exemplified the following IB Learner Profile traits in this experience: communicators, inquirers, risk-takers, and reflective.