This year marks my first year here at the Leahy Center, and so far my experience has been great. As a first-year intern, the team here has been nothing but welcoming. Everybody I’ve been working with has been super helpful in getting me on my feet. Because of their help, I’m able to get quality in-field experience and actually contribute as a first-year intern. Even with COVID changing the landscape, I still feel that I’m getting a fantastic experience.
My internship has been conducted entirely remotely, like all of my classes, however, the process of getting set up was seamless. We’re working on comparing many VPNs, trying to see how the common VPNs are similar and different. Being a first-year college student with little experience in networking, I had to do a little research on my own about how networks operate. Duane Dunston, my team’s faculty member was kind enough to do a video class-like session with me to teach me the basics. So far, we have created a scene and recording what features many VPNs advertise, what they really mean, and how common they are amongst other VPNs. While this information is useful for my work going forwards, it’s good knowledge to have for my future classwork here at Champlain.
My First Year Work
The Leahy Center also gives a lot of room for personal freedom in approaching our tasks. Right now I’m comparing Open VPN, an open-source program most of the VPNs we have studied use, with Wireguard, another open-source VPN. I am also trying to turn my Raspberry Pi 4 into a VPN server. I have not had any success yet, but I continue to try new things every shift.
While I don’t feel that I am as up to speed as others, I believe that I’m quickly catching up. I enjoy learning from my teammates and appreciate all they have taught me. Given I’m majoring in Digital Forensics, the experience I’m getting here at the Leahy Center is invaluable. I’m also planning to double major starting my second year, so I’m excited to start working with networks and the data transferred within them. I’m looking forward to more opportunities at the Leahy Center!
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