Finishing WGU IT degree with Security Emphasis. Capstone info.
ITBot
Member Posts: 114 ■■■□□□□□□□
After a year and a half, I'm almost there! I just finished up the Capstone proposal and it was accepted this morning. Just thought I'd throw out some info for anyone who was struggling with coming up with an idea like I was. I
I ended up with my topic being Improvements to our network to meet HIPAA requirements. I figured that was broad enough that I could talk about anything, policies, hardware, procedures, best practices etc.
I broke it down into:
Physical safeguards: Door security Two factor authentication, security cameras and e-waste disposal.
Technical Safeguards: Encryption, decryption, controlling and monitoring electronic access to PHI, authentication, logging and monitoring of all out going PHI.
Network Security: This includes our switches, routers, firewall, honeypot, ips/ids, vpn connections and wifi security.
I just talked about what we wanted to improve and why, where we started at and where we wanted to be.
After I got an outline of where I wanted to go, it went fairly quickly. Also, I reached out to the course mentors who were awesome. I scheduled a phone call and one of them broke it down for me into exactly what I needed. One of the biggest tips that helped me was that I didn't have to hit the expected pages exactly, as long as it was clear and concise and had enough info I would be okay. Here's how the length broke down for me:
Summary: 2pg
Review of other work: 2pgs
Project Rationale: 2 pages
Systems Analysis and Methodology: 3 pgs
Goals and Objectives: 3pgs
Deliverables: 1pg
Project Plan and Timeline: 3pgs
The other thing is that I felt like I was really redundant with a lot of sections. I was just repeating myself from section to section but just changing up the wording or putting in a little extra detail. I sent it to the course mentors to have them tell me what I needed to do. Just had to edit some APA stuff and rework the format of the goals and objectives a bit.
It passed! My overall rating was 2.5 out of 3.
Feel free to ask me if you have any questions and I'll update this thread with my finished capstone report as well.
I ended up with my topic being Improvements to our network to meet HIPAA requirements. I figured that was broad enough that I could talk about anything, policies, hardware, procedures, best practices etc.
I broke it down into:
Physical safeguards: Door security Two factor authentication, security cameras and e-waste disposal.
Technical Safeguards: Encryption, decryption, controlling and monitoring electronic access to PHI, authentication, logging and monitoring of all out going PHI.
Network Security: This includes our switches, routers, firewall, honeypot, ips/ids, vpn connections and wifi security.
I just talked about what we wanted to improve and why, where we started at and where we wanted to be.
After I got an outline of where I wanted to go, it went fairly quickly. Also, I reached out to the course mentors who were awesome. I scheduled a phone call and one of them broke it down for me into exactly what I needed. One of the biggest tips that helped me was that I didn't have to hit the expected pages exactly, as long as it was clear and concise and had enough info I would be okay. Here's how the length broke down for me:
Summary: 2pg
Review of other work: 2pgs
Project Rationale: 2 pages
Systems Analysis and Methodology: 3 pgs
Goals and Objectives: 3pgs
Deliverables: 1pg
Project Plan and Timeline: 3pgs
The other thing is that I felt like I was really redundant with a lot of sections. I was just repeating myself from section to section but just changing up the wording or putting in a little extra detail. I sent it to the course mentors to have them tell me what I needed to do. Just had to edit some APA stuff and rework the format of the goals and objectives a bit.
It passed! My overall rating was 2.5 out of 3.
Feel free to ask me if you have any questions and I'll update this thread with my finished capstone report as well.
Comments
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aderon
Member Posts: 404 ■■■■□□□□□□
Nice! I just schedule my CCNA sec for next week. This is going to be my next class after that.
Did you start on this right after passing the CCNA Sec or were you already working on this prior? Seems like it's a pretty quick class (Thank goodness, I just want to finish at this point lol).
Anyways, good job man. If we wind up having the same graduation ceremony and we both go we should meet up or something. Congrats.2019 Certification/Degree Goals: AWS CSA Renewal (In Progress), M.S. Cybersecurity (In Progress), CCNA R&S Renewal (Not Started) -
ITBot
Member Posts: 114 ■■■□□□□□□□
I started literally the next day after passing, before my mentor added my class to my schedule. I sent an email to the class mentors and scheduled a phone call with them. Knocked it out working all day Saturday and sent it to the class mentor. They got it back to me that evening with minor revisions, finished it Sunday morning and just had to wait until today to submit. Took about 2 hours for it to be graded so pretty fast turn around time. I scheduled another call for today to talk about converting it to a report and I'll finish it tonight. Just like you, I just want to finish and that's what I told the class mentor, just get me a passing grade! I also asked how quickly it could be done and she told me the fastest she'd seen it done was one weekend.
I enjoyed WGU but I'm sick of getting home from work and studying every night! Going to take a few months off and then slowly start studying for some VMware certs. -
ITBot
Member Posts: 114 ■■■□□□□□□□
Update: I finished my capstone last Friday! I originally turned in the paper last Wednesday and it came back for revisions in one section, Here's what the capstone grader said:
The Project Development includes that the audits were beneficial. A logical explanation of what the project actually accomplished is not evident. Please provide a logical explanation of what the project actually accomplished.
So I added a bunch of details and summed up the project again before getting into the separate subheadings and it passed! I'm finally done! Final paper ended up being 25 pages long, not including references. Just don't hesitate like I did when I felt like I was repeating myself and just change up the wording a bit. If you want to make sure you pass the first time, send it to the course mentors for review before submitting. This time around, it took about 24 hours for the Capstone review.