Cassule Jacinto already had 15 years of database and systems administration experience in his native Angola. But when he moved to Toronto, he struggled to find work. He realized that to advance his IT career in this country, he needed Canadian education and experience.
Herzing College’s cybersecurity program gave him exactly that. After an intensive year of study that included a multi-week work placement, he graduated in May 2025—and was recruited for a role with a leading cloud provider shortly thereafter.
We spoke to Cassule recently to learn more about his experience at Herzing and how it shaped his career path. Here’s his story.
Q. Let’s go back a bit. What were you doing before Herzing?
Cassule: I was working as a database administrator and system administrator for banks and other financial companies abroad.
Then I moved to Canada. It’s very important to have Canadian education and Canadian experience, and I wanted to change my focus to cybersecurity. So I looked into training.
I saw an advertisement about Herzing, checked the program, and applied.
Q. How was the course material and the vibe in class?
Cassule: It was perfect because I like practical topics and the material was very practical. There was some theory, but it was very hands-on.
It was the most intensive training I’ve ever had. Every week there were assignments and labs.
The teacher asked us to work in small teams for our labs, so we could share our knowledge and learn together. We worked a lot as a team to support each other. That was very helpful, especially for the colleagues that didn’t have previous IT experience. About half the class had no background in IT.
If I had an issue that I could not fix by myself, I would put it in the group and another colleague would try to help me. If nobody knew the solution, the teacher would help us.
In my case, I like to work together because with teamwork I learn more. If I try to teach someone how to do something, I will learn more.
Q. How did you find the online learning experience?
Cassule: It was good. We had a lot of support from the teacher. If we had some doubt, we just needed to post and the teacher would answer and guide us in how to do things.
Q. What was the internship like?
Cassule: The college connected me with Technova Consulting to do the internship. It was an online position. I worked on detecting and preventing phishing attacks, evaluating password strength, and developing password strength policies.
It was nice because they exposed me to tasks that I would have in my day-to-day work as a cybersecurity professional.
Q. You started a new job shortly after graduating! Tell us about your role.
Cassule: I’m currently working as a Cloud Support Engineer. Cybersecurity is not my main focus, but I do have security issues and security holes to fix. Every week I have tasks related to security incidents and I need to help companies protect, recover, and restore data.
Q. How would you describe your overall experience at Herzing?
Cassule: It was a very nice experience. I learned a lot. There were a lot of labs, a lot of hands-on practice. On a scale of 1 to 10, I’d give it a 9.
Q. What advice would you give someone who was considering taking this training?
Cassule: It will be very challenging. Every week there is something new. You need to focus and dedicate a lot of time to the training. We spent sometimes two or three days working hard on the labs. But at the end of each lab, you think, oh, I learned a lot.
You need to work hard and keep trying because sometimes in the labs you have the procedures, but something doesn’t work, and you have to investigate. This is just like in the real world. You need to troubleshoot, troubleshoot, troubleshoot again and work hard to find the solution because the labs are not assignments to do like writing. You need to configure things properly and get everything working.
LEARN MORE ABOUT THE CYBERSECURITY PROGRAM AT HERZING
Herzing College’s accelerated cybersecurity program gets you career-ready in just 12 months. Training is delivered online and includes five weeks of real work experience through an internship.
Still have questions? Click below to get full program details and chat live with a friendly admissions advisor. We’re here to help!
