Career Accelerator Program: Secure Coding

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Description

This four-week course will teach you the knowledge, skills, behaviours, and techniques needed to begin or continue an organized and strategic career search. You’ll explore key topics including personal branding, résumé design, job prospecting, and interviewing. You’ll also practice personal growth using narrative reflection techniques based on the four pillars of career success, live discussion, and 1:1 meetings with a career coach.

What you will learn

• Principles of narrative reflection.
• Principles of personal branding.
• Technical and organizational skills for résumé building. LinkedIn job prospecting techniques.
• Interviewing techniques and best practices.
• Networking and communication skills.
• Effective relationship building.

Description

This eight-week course introduces key concepts for securing software applications so you can protect sensitive data, prevent security breaches, and ensure the reliability and trustworthiness of software products. It explores the strategies you can use throughout the software development lifecycle to make code more secure and reduce the need for costly security patches in the future.  

Through case studies featuring real-world examples, you will discover the common vulnerabilities that exist within systems and better understand how to protect against them. You will also learn how modern secure coding tools and practices, such as secure coding with artificial intelligence (AI), can minimize risk and foster a safer and more resilient digital environment for your organization and your users. 

What you will learn

• Follow software development lifecycle (SDLC) guidelines to develop safe coding habits. 
• Use secure design principles to check code for security issues and implement fixes with CodeQL. 
• Understand and explain the requirements for designing secure software systems. 
• Explore how code generation tools can aid in project workflow or pose security risks.
  
  

Course overview

• Receive instruction from secure coding experts in a course authored by University of Waterloo faculty. 
• Participate in approximately five hours of independent, online learning each week (including reflection and discussion tasks, exercises, and assignments.) 
• Practice identifying and reporting security vulnerabilities through diagnostic exercises. 
• Integrate your learning into real-world scenarios with hands-on lab simulations. 
  
  

System requirements

• CodeQL
• GitHub 

Course author

Mei Nagappan is an associate professor and the current Ross and Muriel Cheriton faculty fellow in the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science at the University of Waterloo. His area of research and expertise is focused on deriving solutions that encompass the various stakeholders of software systems, addressing common concerns for software developers, engineers, operators, testers, and project managers. He is also interested in studying big data empirical software engineering by mining ultra large repositories of software to identify patterns and relationships in large ecosystems.

Facilitated by Co-operative and Experiential Education and Practera

This program offers approximately 40 hours of industry-supported project work and engagement that include the following elements: 

• Expand your network and connect with industry leaders and professionals.
• Apply the practical skills and tools that you’ve learned throughout the program in a group project for a real-world industry client (designed to enhance your career prospects and experience through peer collaboration, workshops, and reflection assignments).
• Receive mentorship, guidance, and coaching from industry leaders, so you can learn to give and receive feedback more effectively.

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Receive three hours of complimentary career coaching resources and supports, provided by Uvaro, that include the following elements: 

• Support for career pathway planning. 
• Tailored insights and coaching based on your personalized skills assessment.
• Access to professional career coaches and resources to aid in your future job search or negotiations. 
• Opportunities to reflect on your skills development and future growth or advancement options. 
• Opportunities to practice your job interview techniques and receive feedback on your performance. 
• Job placement support up to six months after you’ve completed the program. 
• Additional 1:1 coaching support for women (including cis women, trans women, and anyone who identifies as a woman). 

• Continue to develop your professional skills through complimentary access to one of WatSPEED’s leadership courses and two online skills training programs (offered in partnership with ed2go). Note: Our career coaches will help you choose options that are best suited to your career goals.