Scott’s career pivot brought job fulfillment and financial reward

While pursuing his undergraduate degree in computer science at Worcester State University, Scott McCarthy, M.S. IT ’18, worked full-time for several local banks, rising to the position of branch manager. After 10 years in the industry, his future looked bright. Problem was, he didn’t want to be a lifelong banker.

“I’ve always had a passion for technology,” McCarthy says. “I’d been programming since I was a child.”

In his efforts to transition to a technology-based position, McCarthy discovered his computer science degree wasn’t sufficient. “I wasn’t getting any callbacks,” he says. “Unfortunately, if you’ve never worked in the field, the computer science degree isn’t enough to get a job.” He decided that earning a master’s degree in IT and cybersecurity would provide the differentiation he needed to reinvent his career.

“I was still working full-time so the MSIT program at Clark was great because I could take all my classes at night,” McCarthy says. “In three years, I had my master’s degree, and within six months, I landed a job in cybersecurity at National Grid.”

McCarthy says the scholar-practitioners that make up Clark’s faculty were a key factor in his decision to enroll in the MSIT program, noting that “when (Professor) Brian LeBlanc teaches the project management classes, he speaks from experience.” McCarthy adds that proximity and price influenced his decision, as well, saying he has gotten “a great return on my investment.”

Within a year of starting at National Grid as a cybersecurity analyst, McCarthy was promoted to senior SOAR engineer and, 22 months later, SOAR technical team lead. “I’ve more than doubled my salary in three years,” he says. “Not only that, I also have more job fulfillment. I really enjoy the things I do. This is definitely the career path I belong on.”

In addition to his responsibilities at National Grid, McCarthy now teaches part-time at Clark, drawing directly from his work experience. “When I do my incident response class next semester, my students are going to learn all about the basics, including how to write up an incident report and how to escalate,” he says. “So when someone asks them what they would do with a malicious email, they’ll be able to say ‘I’m going to take a look at my templates, verify my links and attachments, put them in sandboxes, and so forth.’ They’ll demonstrate that they know what needs to be done, and they’ll get hired.”

Such practical instruction is timely, according to McCarthy. “There aren’t enough cybersecurity analysts in the world,” he says. “There’s a skills gap right now of about two to three million people in the United States alone.”

McCarthy says teaching at Clark is a way for him to pay forward the guidance he received as a student. “I definitely benefitted from being able to talk to people at Clark,” he says. “I remember one of my finals was a job interview with my professor. Is there any better way to prepare someone for the next level than to interview them and then provide feedback? And again, you’re getting that from people who are industry experts and do this on a regular basis.”

And now McCarthy is one of them.