Education And Certs

I actually started off this degree as an MA, since I was just focusing on the national security component. But in the quarter before I graduated, the program started an MS version of it, where they tried to take political science students and teach them about cyber security, and vice versa.

The program was awesome. I got to learn about digital forensics, basic networking, OSINT, social engineering, and a bunch of other stuff too. I also had to start thinking in terms of applying policies to this "digital realm." How do we enforce rules or restrictions in a space that is as intangible as this? It's a hard question, with lots of layers and nuance to it, and it also overlaps perfectly with the accessibility field as well. How do we enforce rules and determine if something is inaccessible or non-compliant? The same kind of questions and thinking that can be used to determine risk and compliance for security (think SOC 2, HECVATs, NIST standards), can be used in accessibility as well (VPATs, EEEAPs, WCAG and 508 standards).

I also got my BA in Political Science (after switching Nursing, then to Kinesiology, then settled on PSCI). I learned a ton on clear and effective writing, history on the US, legal standards, and also interned for a local Assemblyman and a Congressional campaign.

Earned on April 1st, 12:30pm. I learned about how to check web pages for accessibility against the WCAG 2.0 standards (I am teaching myself about the WCAG 2.1 standards now), while also following the DHS Trusted Tester guidelines. It took longer than I liked, but was a fantastic way to learn how to check for hard to parse Success Critera. I have a short write up on it below.

If you're brand new to the accessibility field, and have no background in HTML, CSS, or accessibility standards at all, this training is like jumping into the deepish end of the pool (the deepest end would probably be the WAS certificate from IAAP, or just building a website from scratch and running WAVE and lighthouse against it until you get 100% reports). You will learn the basics of WCAG Success Criteria, how to test for them, and learn what makes for a "failed" instance. The most obvious stuff you'll get some really good examples of for testing (do videos have captions?), and the less obvious and more obtuse areas will also be covered (are elements that are moved around on the screen with CSS still in a logical tab order?).

For those who are thinking about taking it, or are about to take the Trusted Tester exam, I have three tips: First, when you are taking the practice exam, or the full on exam, be sure to ONLY test one standard at a time. It can be VERY easy to get tripped on a question if you are asked to test something like "Does this page fail WCAG 2.1.2 (Keyboard Traps)" and the page doesn't have one, BUT it does skip over a form field. You might be thinking to yourself "well I can't access a form field with just the Keyboard, so doesn't this page fail?" The answer, in the real world, is that the page does fail because of the missed form field, but for the purposes of the test, and for that particular question, if there are NO Keyboard Traps, then the page does in fact pass for that particular question. This was the biggest thing I had to learn (and also why I would not recommend this certificate for someone who is just starting off). Like a lot of certification exams, you end up having to learn the "reasoning" behind the answers for the exam, rather than trying to address the most obvious issue on a page. In short, the first tip is to only test and assess for one thing at a time.

Tip Two: If you want a fun and easy way to test a page for multiple things (I know I just said to only test one thing at a time, but hear me out), press and hold the tab key. This will test a few things at once. First, it will give you a general idea of the tab order of the page. You want all the interactable elements on a page to be in a consistent order, so if I can only use a keyboard and press tab, the Focus Order will be the same for keyboard, as it is visually. You don't want users to press tab and have the Focus go from somewhere on the top of the page, then press tab and end up somewhere in the middle, then press tab and now the Focus is on an off-screen element that hasn't been activated yet. You want the tabbing order to be the same as the reading order. Pressing and holding Tab will help give you a quick assessment if this is the case. Pressing and holding Tab will also give you a very quick assessment on if there are any keyboard traps. A Keyboard trap is when the focus gets stuck in between a few elements, and you can't escape. Not only is this a critical accessibility barrier, but it is also just flat out bad design and UX. Pressing and holding Tab will also help spot these right away. Third, pressing and holding Tab will help you find any interactable elements that cause an unexpected change on the page. If a user can move their focus onto an element that makes a change, the user should also have to activate the element to make the change happen. If I'm tabbing through a page, and the Focus element activates a document download without a prompt, that is a problem for users who use a keyboard, and also, again, just bad UX. Fourth, holding tab will give you a quick idea on how many elements have a Visible Focus on the page. All interactable elements should have a visible focus, so if a user uses a Keyboard, they will know where the focus is at all times on the page. So for the second tip, pressing and holding the Tab key tests for 2.1.2, 2.4.3, 2.4.7 and 3.2.2 all at the same time. Not only is this efficient, but seeing the Focus race through the page is strangely fun.

Finally, if you are brand new to the accessibility fields, or only have to know the basics of accessibility, I do not recommend taking the practice exam, or the full exam. The course itself will gave you a great foundation, but the test itself is a doozy. You really, really have to know your stuff, and not even because of the time limit (there is no time limit as of this writing), you have to know your stuff because you have to be able to decipher not just the right answer, but the most right answer. This can get really, really discouraging, and I can see folks being burnt out by this experience. So if you want to learn the basics of accessibility, the Trusted Tester course is great! But you are more than welcome to skip the practice exam, and certainly the real exam.

Too Long Did Not Read Summary: Test for one thing at a time, pressing and holding tab will test for four Success Criteria at once, and unless you are trying to become an accessibility professional, you can skip the exam and the practice exam.

I took an advanced networking class (shout out Bill) in grad school that was based off the CCNA. The stack of books i got for it goes up to my knee. Hardest but still fun class I've ever taken, and the hardest cert I've ever gotten as well.

The cert you gotta get if you want to work in cyber security at all. Overall I guess it was a good experience? I don't know if I would put that much stock into it over more relevant projects, but overall I guess I learned some stuff?

This was a Covid project my boss suggested to me. I only knew the absolute basics of JAWS before this, and after I had a much better appreciation of how in-depth JAWS is. For example, we once had a student studying the International Phonetics Alphabet (IPA), which weren't being recognized by the screen reader. But we were able to update the SBL files in JAWS to properly recognize these symbols. The student passed the class, and it saved us a massive amount of time we would have had to spend on remediation.

Probably the easiest cert here. Super entry level and beginner introduction to Azure and different cloud concepts. A mile wide but a foot deep, but still a good experience.

Another cert suggested by my boss. This cert was all about how to assess individuals with disabilities, and figure out what the best solution or solutions would be for them. This program is also what led to my 2021 CSUN presentation on bridging the gap between IT management and accessibility.