Hi everyone!
This week I’m going to be telling you a little bit about one of my favorite classes this semester: ITP 375 – Digital Forensics. All Computer Science majors take a certain number of technical electives, and for my last one, I decided to branch out and take a class in the Information Technology Program (ITP). ITP teaches a lot of practical applications of technology including forensics, computer security, and web programming. Check out all the different classes and minors ITP has to offer here.
Digital forensics involves collecting and analyzing evidence stored on digital devices related to a crime. One of the things I really find useful about that class as a CS student is that it gives a lot of hands on experience with the inner workings of a computer, which is easy to lose sight of in everyday CS classes. So far, we’ve learned about how to collect and preserve evidence from different memory locations on the computer and have even spent some time covering mobile devices.

An example of a forensics toolkit that investigators use to image and investigate devices.
I have been really interested in learning more about the legal aspects of forensics and how digital technology can fit into a court case. My professor actually works full time as a forensic investigator (she is about to start a new job for the US Secret Service!) and teaches at night, so she has a lot of real world experiences to tell us about. All of the ITP Forensics professors are also very well connected in industry, so they are always helping to organize tech talks where companies come on campus to recruit for forensics jobs.
That’s it for me this week, hope you enjoyed hearing about another industry for CS majors besides software!
[author title=”Author” author_id=””] Button Text