Veterans gain cybersecurity skills with all-expenses-paid program

For many veterans, leaving the military is anything but a retirement party.

Active-duty personnel follow a strict schedule predetermining what they do, who they talk to and even when they eat. When service members become veterans, however, that structure disappears. New careers must be built. Life can get hard.

In 2018, veterans accounted for almost 14 percent of all suicide deaths among U.S. adults, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs. Further, veterans who are in their first year away from service are twice as much at risk of suicide than the veteran population as a whole.

Helping veterans transition into new, well-paying careers is FIU’s Veterans and First Responders Training Initiative. The online program provides a year’s worth of practical cybersecurity training at no cost to veterans and first responders.