So you just started at RIT, and you want to know how to make the most of your time here? Whether you’re new on campus, considering applying, or didn’t participate much in your first year and are looking to get involved now, this post provides a detailed breakdown of the opportunities available through RITSEC and how you can take full advantage of them.
This post is mainly written with incoming first years or transfer students in mind, but others may find the information useful as well. A lot of the content covered in this post is also shared in the “Intro to RITSEC” presentation during the first general meeting of the fall semester.
Meeting Format
Let’s start with a brief crash course on the format of RITSEC meetings and events.
Our general meeting is held every Friday from 12:00PM to 4:00PM (with the exception of Fridays preceding school breaks or our competitions) in the cybersecurity building conference rooms — it’s on the main floor across from the cyber range with the RITSEC flag hanging in the doorway, very hard to miss. The meeting kicks off with the education portion at 12:00PM-1:00PM, where one of our club members, or possibly an industry presenter, gives a talk on the specialized topic for the week. Usually, the fall semester topics stay the same year-to-year, where we teach the basics of Windows, Linux, career advice, core services, black teaming, red teaming, et cetera…
Following education is demo time. Demos are a set of CTF-style challenges, ranging from easy to hard, that specifically correspond to the topic of education for that week. At the end of the school year, the top three scorers for demos win some really cool prizes.
At around 2:00PM, we bring out the free pizza, continue doing demos, and mingle for a bit.
In the fall semester of my freshman year, I had back-to-back classes from 11:50AM to 3:50PM, but whenever I came out of my software development class upstairs, I’d always be just in time for some pizza before heading to YOPS. All that to say, you shouldn’t sweat not being able to make the general meeting — I found plenty of other ways to get involved.
From 2:30PM to 4:00PM is the research portion of the meeting. Anyone can sign up to present on anything tech-, privacy-, or infosec-related they’d like. It’s a low-stress way to teach club members something you’re passionate about, whether it’s a personal project, mentorship project, class project, or co-op experience. Your first presentation earns you your very own RITSEC lanyard, and subsequent presentations stack up for bigger and better prizes. This portion of the meeting is also where we bring in industry speakers from our sponsor companies to give talks.
Yes, the meeting is four hours long. There is no expectation for you to be there for all four hours, you can come and go as you please. Education talks will always be recorded and posted to our YouTube channel, and you can do the demos on your own time. Research talks are not guaranteed to be posted. We also stream the meeting live on Twitch.
Freshman pro tip: we host a RITSEC BBQ on the Friday afternoon after the first general meeting of the semester, in a location that’s walkable from dorms. I highly recommend attending so that you can get to know current club members and meet some other new people looking to get involved.
The Club Room
The club room is our little headquarters, located on the second floor of the GCI on the corner near the large 0101 window. You can come here in between your classes or in the evenings before/after IG meetings. It’s a great space to get some homework help or kill that awkward one-or-so hour gap between classes. There are no set hours for the club room; e-board members and IG leads are the only ones with access to open it and take responsibility for it, so it’s available whenever they’re free to open it up and stick around. Realistically, it’ll be open at any reasonable time you’d want to show up (and honestly, probably at some unreasonable times too).
Inside, we’ve got tables, monitors, lock-picking materials, an extremely comfy new couch, and a whiteboard where you’re likely to see someone’s scribbled network diagram or linear algebra homework.
We hold scheduled “hack nights” every so often, which serve as an extra excuse to head in, hang out, and work on projects together in the evening for a few set hours.
The club room may seem daunting to walk into, but it’s actually a room full of potential connections. All the people in there are either there to help you out or learn new things themselves. Feel free to just ask anyone to explain their favorite cybersecurity topic to you, and I guarantee that you’ll get a great conversation out of it.
Our Discord Server
This is the main platform for RITSEC communications. We have a lot of channels, which is why there is the role-join channel, where you can pick which channels to join for interest groups and topics of interest. Just to pick a few of the most important channels, #announcements, #general, #questions, and #signin are the ones to be familiar with. If you aren’t in our Discord yet, the join link is at the end of this post in Important Links.
The next few sections are unfortunately a bit information-dense, but it’s important to define a lot of the roles and activities in this club in order to understand the advice I’ll be sharing later in this post.
Executive Board (E-Board)
Here’s a quick overview of our e-board’s structure and each position’s responsibilities.
President: The big boss, the face of the club and e-board. Coordinates external-facing logistics.
Vice President: Supports the president. Assists e-board members as needed. Presides over the a-board.
Treasurer: Responsible for all financial transactions of all aspects of the organization and keeping all financial records up to date. Crafts budgets for each event, interest group, e-board position, and more.
Director of Public Relations: Acts as the public-facing individual for RITSEC pertaining to organizations outside of RIT. Responsible for all interactions with current and potential sponsors.
Secretary: Records and publishes weekly e-board meeting notes. Manages the livestreaming and recording of club meetings. Maintains RITSEC’s public calendar. Responsible for the interest groups.
Operations Lead: Responsible for the Operations program. Keeps our stack from burning down.
Head of Education: Organizes the education portion of club meetings by selecting presenters and ensuring a presentation has been created for the topic of the week in a timely manner. Assists the Tech Lead with demos as needed.
Head of Research: Organizes the research portion of club meetings by selecting presenters and ensuring their presentation has been created in a timely manner. Presents weekly news topics Promotes research opportunities to be undertaken by RITSEC members and reviews research grant requests.
Tech Lead: Responsible for designing and distributing technical demos of weekly meetings.
ISTS Competition Architect: Designs and oversees all aspects of the Information Security Talent Search competition.
IRSeC Competition Architect: Designs and oversees all aspects of the Incident Response Security Competition.
CTF Competition Architect: Designs and oversees all aspects of the RITSEC Capture The Flag competition.
To see who currently holds the e-board positions, check out the about page on our website.
Assistance Board (A-Board)
Web Admin: Responsible for maintaining all RITSEC websites.
Junior Tech Lead: Directly reports to and is responsible for assisting the current Tech Lead.
Junior Operations Lead: Directly reports to and is responsible for assisting the current Operations Lead.
Head of Social Media: Responsible for maintaining all RITSEC social media.
Head of Social Events: Responsible for organizing social events throughout the semesters.
Interest Groups (IGs)
Interest groups are extensions of the club, each with their own sub-focus. As of writing this post, below are the interest groups that we have.
Red Team/Red Team Recruiting: Perform the role of an effective adversary to blue teams at RITSEC and affiliated competitions. Grow the skills and knowledge in red teaming, software development, and offensive security within RITSEC. Attend red team recruiting to learn more about red teaming and the requirements to join the RITSEC Red Team, as well as to build your first red team tool.
Team Contagion: Teach students about Capture The Flag (CTF) competitions. Represent RITSEC at CTFs. Research and develop CTF challenges for CTF competitions.
Reverse Engineering: Also known as Reversing. Learn about reverse engineering, vulnerability research, and exploit development.
Vulnerability Research: Also known as VRIG. Learn the process of finding vulnerabilities in different classes of software; this includes techniques such as fuzzing, manual code review, and more.
Wireless: Also known as Wiggles. Research and educate in topics of Radio Frequency (RF) and wireless security; this includes topics such as Wi-Fi, Cellular, RFID, SDR, Amateur Radio, etc.
Physical Security: Learn about different physical security bypasses, how to pick locks, and gain skills which can be used in a physical pentesting career.
RIT Vulnerability Assessment and Penetration Testing: Also referred to as RVAPT. Learn about scanning assets, finding and exploiting vulnerabilities, and assessing a network/system’s security posture. Familiarize members with performing a penetration test and how to write a professional penetration test report.
Operations: Also known as Ops. Learn about DevSecOps, operating systems, system administration, networking, cloud computing, and secure software development.
Incident Response: Referred to as IRIG. Research and educate about cyber incidents, and how to respond to these incidents; this includes topics such as compliance frameworks, SOC/SIEM/SOAR monitoring tools, forensics analysis, log analysis, and cyber defense techniques.
Women in Cybersecurity (WiCyS) RIT Student Chapter: Technically an external organization. Present opportunities through the WiCyS Organization, such as attending the annual conference and career fairs. Connect alumnae connected to the RIT community and to strengthen the bond between current female students.
Operational Technology (OT) Security: Learn about protecting the computers and machines that control real-world things like power plants, water treatment facilities, traffic lights, and factory machines.
Zero To Hero: Designed for success-seeking beginners; focusing on foundational knowledge, learning what you don’t know, giving academic and career guidance, and finding as well as diving into your security niche.
Competitions
IRSeC (Incident Response Security Competition): Our beginner-friendly red vs. blue competition, hosted each fall. Provides mainly first- and second-year RIT students with introductory experience in cyber defense and incident response. Teams of five can sign up together or you can register as a free agent and be assigned a team. The competition is entirely built and organized by RITSEC members. Leading up to the event, we host Blue Team workshops leading up to the competition to teach you all the skills you’ll need to prepare for what you will encounter at the competition and get a good experience out of it. You will hear a lot more about IRSeC through announcements in our Discord, as well as education presentations covering the core of how everything works for our competitions.
RITSEC CTF: Global Capture The Flag competition, hosted each spring, in which you can compete or write challenges for.
ISTS (Information Security Talent Search): Three-day cyber attack/defend competition, hosted each spring. Universities from around the country plus the winning team of IRSeC are invited to compete. Not only is there the traditional red vs. blue aspect, but ISTS also includes purple teaming (attacking other blue teams), a mini CTF, a King of the Hill (KotH) challenge, and The Game. RITSEC students get involved in the setup of this competition through black teaming and white teaming.
DO NOT worry about memorizing all the information about our IGs, positions, and competitions. We make sure to keep all of our members in the loop via Discord announcements and frequently re-share this info as events approach, so you won’t be lost.
The First-Year Itinerary
These are the things to focus on as a first-year student to maximize the benefit you can get out of RITSEC.
First things first, sign up for the RITSEC newsletter (mail.ritsec.club). It is sent out each week with information on education and research presenters for that week’s meeting, any currently ongoing sign-ups, and details on upcoming events.
In the fall semester, you’ll have the privilege of a relatively light course load filled with gen eds and introductory cybersecurity classes. During this time, attend our social events like the BBQ and local trips to places such as Letchworth State Park and apple picking. Head into the club room, meet some people, and find your place in RITSEC.
The mentorship program is one of the best things you can do as a first-year. We offer group and one-on-one mentorship. Mentorship groups are led by 1-2 mentors where mentees will learn a specific topic and create a project to present to the club. 1-1 mentorship pairs one mentee with one upperclassman mentor for regular meetings, advice, and support. RITSEC’s mentorship program is a great way to build connections with upperclassmen and other club members, gain skills and experience to add to your resume, and also get to attend exclusive mentorship social events throughout the semester.
I also want to highlight the Zero to Hero interest group, which is new as of fall 2025. As mentioned above, this IG is meant to help teach and reinforce basic topics that will help you do cool stuff once you have the basics down. The goal is to bring your cybersecurity knowledge to be ahead of the classes you take in your first year and help you dive into specific areas of security.
Participate in IRSeC!!! In my opinion, this is a must-do as part of the ultimate RITSEC first-year experience. See Competitions for a description of IRSeC, check out the website linked in the Important Links section below, and keep an eye on the Discord for when we release blue team or white team sign-ups.
You should also compete in the WiCyS CTF, which offers a great CTF experience with challenges written by RITSEC members. I am a renowned CTF hater and even I competed in the WiCyS CTF my first year. As with most things in college, you gotta to try it at least once before deciding whether or not you like it, and it was a great learning experience.
Additionally, you can attend CCDC tryouts and compete in the Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition (CCDC) mini-comp for extra blue team experience. It’s essentially IRSeC part two, and you don’t need to have any intention of joining the CCDC team to participate.
If you have any questions at all, make sure to use the #freshmen-forum and #freshman-guide channels in our Discord.
Once the spring semester hits, you’ll have gotten into the groove of things. Be ready to lock in, because your classes will get harder and Rochester winter sucks a little sometimes. Keep attending interest groups, maybe work on some research for the club, and sign up for spring mentorship. The spring is the time to compete in the RITSEC CTF and help out with ISTS by signing up for white team or black team. When Imagine RIT rolls around, you can volunteer to table at the RITSEC exhibit to show off our interest groups, mentorship, and research projects.
Career Stuff
The RITSEC Career Fair Eve (CFE) is an exclusive career fair event with just RITSEC’s sponsors. It’s split into virtual CFE and in-person CFE, and takes place every semester on the evenings before the RIT career fair to give our sponsors the opportunity to recruit RITSEC members directly because they know we have a lot to offer. If you’re not ready for the whole job-hunting process, you can use CFE as practice for the RIT career fair or to get resume feedback directly from recruiters.
A slept-on resource is the #resume-reviews channel in our Discord. You can post your resume on our resume review site and get feedback from RITSEC members. I definitely recommend throwing your resume in there at least once during your freshman year, particularly before a career fair.
Conclusion
By the way, you do not need to be a cybersecurity major to attend RITSEC! Many of our members are majoring in computer science, software engineering, computing and information technologies, computer engineering, and more.
All in all, the club is a diverse group of people that you can learn a lot from. As you can tell, we offer a lot of ways to get involved and have something for everyone’s interests. Try to soak up as much as possible, but also just stick to what’s fun for you and don’t overthink it. We are always happy to welcome new members, and we look forward to seeing you at our meetings and in the club room. :)