Twenty years ago, it was easy to go for a master’s degree in security and risk management. Either you went through Leicester, or Loughborough, writes Mark Rowe in this round-up of what academic and other courses are out there for the security person.
You went to the campus occasionally for study days, and otherwise you wrote your essays and put them in an envelope and posted them. The internet revolutionised degree learning for adults, like so many things. You can read for an essay through the university’s online library, write it on your laptop, press a button and it arrives at your tutor’s desk – you, and they, need be nowhere near the actual uni. You can be working as a bodyguard in Baku, or an embassy in Caracas, and what have you better to do, when not on shift? You might as well exercise your mind, and if you’re stuck, you can place a video call with your tutor. Besides, the choices for the security professional have multiplied, so much so that you have arguably too much choice. Should you take a general security-risk master’s, or a more specialist one, or one in a related discipline? Here are some of your options.
Cyber MBA
A Cyber Security Executive Master of Business Administration (CEMBA) is a part-time programme which encourages people to become successful leaders, whilst learning enough about cyber security to be in a position to introduce different ways of thinking at board level, says Lancaster University. The course is led by its Management School, and students are taught by academics and people from industry. The next start is in October.
What academia regards as ‘security studies’ may not be the same as what a security manager expects. Academia may define ‘security’ more in terms of international relations, politics, diplomacy; and nation-state security. Bear that in mind with Birmingham City University’s MA in security studies, although some of the modules sound suitable for a security practitioner, such as ‘political violence’ and terrorism, and ‘homicide and harm’. However, it isn’t long before we come up against the left-wing fashions in criminology, such as (to quote from the BCU prospectus) ‘harms caused by powerful interests’ (the idea that big business and government do crimes, such as pollution and fraud), ‘green criminology in an age of climate breakdown’, and ‘contemporary surveillance technologies’ – ‘prison regimes, practices, and systems’ have moved into other, ‘securitised’ spheres. It’s starting in September as a one year, postgraduate course (that is, you need a first degree already) and costs £9250; ask the uni about the two-year part-time equivalent.
Expo talk
During the two-day Cloud & Cyber Security Expo at Excel in London Docklands, Harjinder Singh Lallie, Director (Cyber Security), at the University of Warwick is speaking on the cyber security degree landscape, on day two, Thursday morning, March 9. Visit https://www.cloudsecurityexpo.com/conference-programme.
Cranfield
Cranfield University is a place to look if you’re on the defence side of security as its Wiltshire campus hosts the UK Defence Academy (you need security clearance to enter). Dr Annette Southgate joined Cranfield as Director of Security in August, on a secondment from the Foreign Office, while Heather Goldstraw from the Ministry of Defence became Director of Defence in January. She said: “Recent events in Ukraine have brought defence and security back into everyone’s consciousness and highlighted the inextricable links between defence and security and national prosperity.”
Cranfield is running a two-day symposium at its Wiltshire campus on cyber and the military. Generally you can choose between a two-year or three-year part-time master’s, and week-long courses. At Cranfield, you can combine the two. A recent week’s course on cyber terrorism, for instance, counted as credits towards a Counter-terrorism MSc or Counter-terrorism, Risk Management and Resilience MSc. As at other unis, you can pick modules to suit your interest – in Cranfield’s case, such as being an expert witness, or forensic investigations, or protection of critical national infrastructure (another short, week’s course you can take – £1925 as a one-off, or £690 if it’s towards a degree.
See also Cranfield’s blogs; for example, Dr Danny Steed, Lecturer in Cyber Security and Robert Black, Lecturer in Information Activities at Cranfield, commented recently on the role that cyber warfare has played in Russia’s war in Ukraine so far.
Continued: click here to read part two.
