STACK is the Department of Computing's annual careers event, where students and employers showcase their work and host a number of activities for visitors.

This year's event took place on 28th February and was attended by students, technology companies and leaders from the Sheffield City Region. We also officially launched our new Security Operations Centre which will help businesses defend themselves against cybercrime.

Anthony Keys, Adam Harris, George Robertson, and Ellie Smith are second year students from BSc (Honours) Computer Security with Forensics who attended the event. Here's what they gained from it.

'As a group, we wanted to take part in the STACK event to help promote our course and speak to people from the industry. We are currently looking for placements for our third year and the event gave us the chance to be able to present our knowledge of the subject to employers.

'Our group set up a stall to talk about mobile forensics using a Cellebrite kit. We are using this kit as part of our Digital Forensic module and have all enjoyed learning about it. As students, visitors and employers walked by, we gave a live demonstration of different types of data extractions the forensic kit can do, as well as giving them a go at removing passcodes on mobiles.

'Our highlight of STACK was speaking to employers and demonstrating our passion for the subject to them, including people from IBM, Cyfor and 3Squared. Having the opportunity to talk to them about how they use digital forensics in their businesses and how they protect their systems helped us build knowledge of the industry and realise how what we are learning is used practically.

'We also enjoyed being able to promote Digital Forensics and educate people on the subject. We spoke to a number of first year students from our course and gave them more information about what they have in store for their second year. "STACK has helped us build relationships with potential future employers which will be very beneficial when we are looking for a placement. It has given us something to add to our CV and enhanced our organisation and communication skills as we had to arrange and set up our stall for the day. This will all help make us more desirable to potential employers. 

'Our next steps are to use the relationships we have built with the employers to contact them about any placements/programmes which we could apply for.'

Find out more about STACK by following @SHU_STACK