Special Topics: Geopolitics of Cybersecurity

This course content is fantastic but the way grading and timing is handled is not great, especially for a class in a program billed toward working professionals. TAs often did not give complete feedback on assignments and grades seemed highly arbitrary, with several areas of the rubric missing points without comments. Though outlined in the syllabus, I still do not understand why the due date is not the actual due date - discussion posts must be posted by you a week in advance of the due date and you cannot comment on others posts in the same day otherwise risk losing points. Grading was consistently delayed in getting inputted, with final items being put in the last day grades were due. With a few logistical tweaks this class could be excellent but it has turned into one of the most disappointing of my time at Tech.

Highly recommend this course if you can take it with Professor Lindsay and have an interest in the topic. This is the only OMSCS class I've taken so far where I was somewhat sad for it to end - minus the final project. I wanted the class to continue so we could learn more. It was an opportunity engage with the material, professor, and other students, without high stress or meaningless busywork. This environment was conducive to learning.

Professor Lindsay and the TAs are engaged with students in weekly office hour chats pertaining to current events in geopolitics and cybersecurity. The class is the most interactive of any OMS course I've taken, and feels more like what I'd get out of an in-person class. Part of the assignments include ongoing 1-2 weeks of discussions with other students, and it's interesting to learn from one another if you have an interest in the course topic.

The lectures are up to date, professional, and well put together. The assignments are effective at getting one to learn from the lectures, readings, and from other students.

Deliverables were:

• 4 group projects including 2 shorter papers, one 15-minute presentation, and a final longer paper. You review the same 2 cybersecurity incidents, which your group chooses, for each of the project deliverables. You also get to see 15-minute presentations on all the other groups' projects, so you have the opportunity to learn about several different cybersecurity incidents outside those covered in lectures.

• 4 learning modules, each of which includes 1.5-2 hours of high quality video lectures, Perusall readings which are interesting, relevant, and well chosen, and answering 3 discussion questions along with commenting on other students' discussion answers

Do not take this course if you

• Have a full time job, or
• Have another course to deal with, or
• Want to have any free time left in the day, or
• Hate vague, confusing assignments

This was by far the worst course I've taken so far - and I was waking up at 4am daily to keep up with the amount of course work. For example, in any given 2 week span, expect

1. 300-400 pages to read and engage on Perusall
2. Giant word salad "discussions" to write up - with 15 subquestions each
3. A "group" assignment which also involves giant write ups and tons of research
4. "Engagement" - a very loosely defined metric that means watch videos, post on Ed, respond to other discussions, etc

What makes it worse is that the expectations are very vague.

I've gotten the same score when i read and commented on every single page out of the 300 pages - as I did when I just added 3-4 comments and skimmed through the content. Unfortunately, this is trial and error and really depends on the TA's you get for grading

Discussion posts are giant write ups that also require you to respond to 2 or more other students' posts - but there's an arbitrary rule of "dont respond to more than 1 post in 48 hours" - or you lose points. Again the expectations are super vague. I've seen people respond to these discussion questions (10-15 questions) with 2 sentences each, or entire 6000 word essays.

The final assignment worth 30% of the grade is also super confusing. Again a write up expecting 5000 words without any clear expectations - and that allows you to get whatever grade based on the TA's mood of the day.

Oh - and don't expect any realistic engagement on Ed discussions from the TA's. Several "is this what you expect" questions about assignment specifics went unanswered.

TLDR; Its an interesting course, made awful by horribly constructed assignments, poorly defined expectations and extreme workload. Easy to pass, difficult to get an A.

PS - If you're in a group assignment, also expect people to drop out. We had several people drop out of the course due to its workload and vague grading.

Overall great course! Took it as my 5th course along with Computer Networks (6th). I took it the first semester that it was open as an elective for OMSCS.

The material is super interesting material and the merging of International Relations and Cybersecurity was great. If you have any interest in geopolitics or gaining exposure to political theory through a CS curriculum, this is it. If you don't want it, skip. As someone in the defense industry, this was perfect for me.

Not a difficult course; I'd say it is more difficult than the Digital Marketing class, but not by much. Course is divided into 4 modules, which have individual and group assignments due every 3-4 weeks. Easy A if you write well and READ THE RUBRIC so you dont lose silly points.

Overall, no quizzes or tests, just writing assignments.

There are multiple readings that are done through Perusall which require you to read sometimes 100-200 pages in a browser and prevents file downloads to read offline/print. They are also documents about government, war, or strategy and not anything technical. Generally dry material but relevant for your writing assignments. (2-5 hrs per module)

Writing assignments are shorts essays answering 3-4 questions about the topics discussed in the lecture modules. Typically 1 question per lecture section per module. Took about 4-6 hrs each module to do and provide responses to other people's essays.

There is a group project the entire semester where you research a cyber attack and discuss its background, general methods, and strategy within the framework of the course. This is a non-technical paper by nature. You do it with 3-4 others and have 4 project assignments to do together. Like all groups, depends on the team effort. Divide and conquer, but ensure everyone pulls their weight. With a good team, everything is easy to manage. We had 5 group teams meetings to complete everything (1-1.5 hrs each meeting). Assignments are:

1. 1 page summary of the attack and its relevance (3hr)
2. a bibliography/timeline paper where you research the attack and collect & summarize sources (8hrs)
3. a video presentation where you discuss methods and strategy (use ppt and record, then parse vids together. Or use MS teams and record) (5hr each member + time to rehearse and record)
4. final 5000 word paper on the attack. (10hrs per person)

Overall, if geopolitics and policy are interesting to you, use an elective and one of your 2 non-CS/CSE courses. It's easily paired with another course and worth the time for an interesting course. Skip if you value technical classes.