All Information below was compiled from an Interview with the Executive Director of NUCIA, Dr. Blaine Burnham, on June 4th, 2007.

Demand for information assurance?

Information assurance doesn’t look like it’s going away anytime soon as a career field. Information assurance doesn’t look like it will be outsourced or sent offshore in the future and both demand and pay for the work are going up.

What is NUCIA looking for in potential students?

It definitely takes a different sort of person to be successful in this course of study. Potential students need to be able to think like a bad-guy. This business requires a developed sense of larceny constrained by a strong sense of ethics. This sort of study allows a student to develop both the "ying and the yang" of his personality. Not many disciplines allow for both.

What does NUCIA offer students?

We offer great lab facilities that are designed to be broken. They are available for anything you can think of doing or running. I liken them to a demolition derby for computers. Students are encouraged to try and do things - not by assignments but rather here’s the rough idea, now go see what you can make of it.

We also have faculty members who have worked with and have connections to the people who invented information assurance. Some of our faculty members know how it really works when you go out into the field and have to earn a living at it and meet customer's needs - it really adds a unique sense of realism to the material you learn.

About employer's reactions to NUCIA students?

Students here are extraordinarily competitive - and employers cannot get enough of them. Students are fully prepared for employment and upper-class students applying to various "three letter agencies" are able to carry on a conversation and fit right in almost immediately with professionals in the field.