student organizations

Film and problem-solving inspire mechanical engineering student

Anonymous — Fri, 16 Apr 2021 12:35:14 +0000

Film and problem-solving inspire mechanical engineering student Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 04/16/2021 - 08:35

When Paul Cipparone was choosing a major, he saw two choices: film and engineering. While seemingly unrelated, Cipparone chose mechanical engineering, but he still finds ways to channel his creative energy into forging his unique career path and building new skills.

“I chose engineering because I like problem-solving and finding creative solutions and angles to innovate new things,” he says. “Engineering also offers transferrable skills that can be applied to other fields.” But in addition to film and engineering, Cipparone strives to add more of these skills to his toolkit.

Cipparone’s first internship was at the American Society for Mechanical Engineers (ASME), doing policy work. “I knew nothing about policy. I didn’t know how a bill was made or what ASME did in the policy space,” says Cipparone. But he didn’t let that keep him from pursuing the opportunity and completing the internship.

“I’m a big fan of trying completely new things and taking risks.” And if you put in the work, there is a big reward—learning a new skill, he says.

Similarly, Cipparone took a nontraditional route to get an internship at SpaceX this past summer. He saw an article on LinkedIn about getting internships at top companies, and he took a chance and contacted the author. “He said the best way is to reach out to as many people as you can in the sector you want to work in at a company, so that’s what I did.” And SpaceX was his top choice.

A Northern Virginia native, Cipparone always had an interest in space, but SpaceX sparked his interest in the engineering side of space exploration. “SpaceX and Elon Musk’s work with reusable rockets was so new, and it’s something people thought was impossible to do. It is actually what inspired me to pursue engineering,” he says.

So, he got to work reaching out to people at SpaceX and eventually landed a dream role working as a space engineer at the company in Texas. “It was a risk. There were a lot of people who didn’t answer, but it only took one,” says Cipparone.

As for film, Cipparone hasn’t given up. “I’ve had the chance to take some cool film classes while at Mason, and I hope to one day become a filmmaker too,” he says.

Cipparone doesn’t see a limit to what he can learn in his lifetime, and he urges fellow engineers to keep their options open. “I don’t think we need to be confined to one thing, art or engineering. I want to do everything I can."

Topics

mechanical engineering

Space

student organizations

Mason Competitive Cyber heads to national competition for the first time

Anonymous — Tue, 13 Apr 2021 16:41:37 +0000

Mason Competitive Cyber heads to national competition for the first time Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 04/13/2021 - 12:41

George Mason University’s competitive cyber club is headed to the National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition (NCCDC) after beating out intense competition in a nationwide wildcard round.

Mason Competitive Cyber is a team of undergraduate students from different majors who spend their free time competing in various cyber competitions. Last year, the team won the CyberFusion State Cup, where they competed against all the universities in Virginia.

This year is the first time the team has advanced to the NCCDC since their first appearance in 2019. “There are two general kinds of competitions: jeopardy and attack-defense. MCC has traditionally excelled in the Jeopardy competitions.  CCDC is an Attack-Defense competition.  In 2019, MasonCC competed in the Mid-Atlantic CCDC for the very first time.  That year we did not make it out of the qualifier round,” says Caleb Yu, vice president for the club.

After their initial loss, some team members weren’t sure if this was the competition for them. But they came back in 2020 and placed higher in their region. The nine regions of the country take the first-place winner from the regional competitions, and this year the team won second place for their region.

“Since we won second, we qualified for a wildcard round.  We competed against the eight other second-place teams from the other regions.  Once again, only the first-place team advances to the national finals,” says Yu.

The MCC team pulled out the win, coming in first, with Stanford University’s team taking second. “Stanford got third place in the national competition last year.  When we noticed that they were also in the wildcard round, we knew that we'd have some fierce competition. It feels awesome to have advanced in place of a team that could have been seen as a heavy favorite,” he says.

The team will compete on April 23 through 25 against the top teams from across the country. “We are expecting some fierce competition from the other schools, but our confidence has never been higher,” says Yu.

Topics

Mason Competitive Cyber

Cybersecurity

Student news

student organizations

Practicing professionalism prepares students for success

Anonymous — Thu, 18 Mar 2021 19:16:34 +0000

Practicing professionalism prepares students for success Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 03/18/2021 - 15:16

Engineering and technology college courses cover the problem-solving skills successful students will need in their careers. But what those courses don’t always cover is how to get a job.

Ximena Perez hopes to help her fellow SHPE members learn about networking and the career opportunities it opens up. Photo provided.

For senior computer science major and Honors College student Ximena Perez, she found her community in the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) as a member, president, and now as vice president of the student organization.

Perez, who was born in Peru and moved to Virginia when she was 3-years-old, came to Mason because of its proximity to home and its affordability. Her freshman year, she knew she wanted to join Latino organizations, and she found SHPE through connections with former executive board members.

“I gained a lot of mentors when I joined,” says Perez. “It was super awesome to see and learn from fellow engineering students.”

One important lesson Perez learned from her mentors and hopes to bring to current members is the value of professionalism. At her first SHPE annual conference in fall 2019 in Cleveland, Ohio, the organization's professional development side resonated. “The conference was overwhelming but exciting, there’s a huge career fair with recruiters from big-name companies, and I realized there’s a whole world of networking opportunities out there,” says Perez.

And Perez dove in. She sought out opportunities to test her skills and get recognized. One avenue she found was hackathons. “I completed a few hackathons in the last couple of years, like Mason’s Patriot Hacks and Georgetown’s Hoya Hacks,” she says. “At Hoya Hacks, I got to work with students from different schools to create an interactive app for DACA recipients. It was great to meet new people and work on something I was passionate about.”

These types of events are gold mines for building your network and testing your skills, says Perez. And her goal as a leader of SHPE has been to illustrate their value.

While Perez feels her computer science education has provided the foundation for developing her technical skill, SHPE helped her learn how to build her brand and pitch her skills to recruiters. “What you learn in classes prepares you for what you’re doing, but SHPE helps with actually getting the job.”

Marrying her two skills together, Perez feels prepared to enter the workforce after her graduation in May. “My time at Mason has taught me so much—in my courses, in SHPE, and in the Honors College, I’ve been given all of the tools I need.”

Topics

computer science

student organizations

Hackathon

Honors College

Mason Competitive Cyber Club cracks the code, hacks a building

Anonymous — Mon, 04 Jan 2021 14:11:34 +0000

Mason Competitive Cyber Club cracks the code, hacks a building Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 01/04/2021 - 09:11

Topics

Cybersecurity

Cyber Security

student organizations

This past November, Mason Competitive Cyber (MCC) put their hacking skills to the test and participated in Hack the Building, a cybersecurity competition hosted by the U.S. Cyber Command, a division of the U.S. Department of Defense, Dreamport, and the Maryland Innovation and Security Institute.

Eight of MCC’s top members teamed up with fellow cyber competition enthusiasts at the University of Virginia to literally hack a building, but not just any building. This was a 150,000 square feet, two-story office building filled with smart devices, diesel generators, and business systems.

“This was unlike any competition we had participated in before,” says Caleb Yu, MCC’s vice president. “We encountered both traditional information technology networks and industrial control networks and hacked through both cyber and physical means.”

While most of MCC’s team hacked the building remotely from the safety of their homes, two members from each team were invited to also infiltrate the building on-site in Annapolis, Maryland. “Uniquely, this competition featured physical access control systems to attack and exploit, including badge readers, security cameras, and physical doors,” says MCC president Zaine Wilson. “This was the first time I'd ever been to a competition that has these challenges.”

Over the four-day competition, MCC’s team was given numerous scenarios in which they had to hack various components of the smart building. “Hack the Building had several challenges that required Red Team skills like lateral movement, privilege escalation, and password attacks,” says MCC competitions officer Andrew Oliveau. “We began in an IT network and hacked our way into a non-internet connected OT [industrial hardware] network.”

From there, the team reverse-engineered elevator controls, disabled heat exhaust fans, and manipulated electric power distribution units.

In one challenge the team disabled the building’s security cameras. “Some of the challenges seemed straight out of spy films,” says Yu. “It is exhilarating when we’re able to pull off a successful cyber-attack, but, at the same time, it is also frightening. Scenarios like these show how our network-connected world can be brought down by hackers.”

Facing stiff competition from security industry professionals around the country, George Mason University’s student team not only held its own but also found surprising success in many of the event’s challenges and exceeded expectations throughout the four days.

They even received a shoutout from competition officials in front of former Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director Chris Krebs on the Hack the Building livestream. Krebs oversaw much of the national strategy for defending critical infrastructure in cyberspace. It was a wonderful surprise to the team to be lauded in front of him.

Although Hack the Building does not formally declare a winner, team bragging rights come from getting “first blood” on various challenges, which means they were able to hack their way through the challenge before any of the other teams. Impressively, a moderator informed Mason Competitive Cyber’s team that they had the most first blood solves in the competition of any team, including the professional ones.

At the end of the four days, MCC members spoke highly of the competition and expressed eagerness to compete again in the following years. “This competition gave me experience in what it's actually like to run a full-scope penetration test, and I'm absolutely hooked,” says Wilson.

Hack the Building created the most realistic environment that the MCC team has encountered, says the team. Rather than solving isolated cybersecurity challenges, the competition’s style of scenario-based cyber-attack campaigns brought a sense of realism to the competition.

And as the U.S. Department of Defense works to raise the next generation of cyber warriors through competitions such as Hack the Building, MCC proved they are up for the challenge.

This story was written by members of the Mason Competitive Cyber club.