Alejandro Sayes Sanchez

How did you first hear about Rize, and why did you decide to take a Rize course?

Alex is an international student from Spain who attends Reinhardt University on a volleyball scholarship, double majoring in Computer Science and Cybersecurity. He's taken numerous Rize courses, including three this semester, and plans to take the Computer Science Capstone next semester. From his first course, Alex was drawn to the self paced, project based learning “I'm usually very interested in everything I do so I love how professors provide basic resources, and then we're allowed to just go online and go big on the projects.”

How did you apply your Rize skills outside of the classroom?

Alex secured a summer internship at Automated Solutions Consulting Group in Woodstock, Georgia through networking with the IT department at Reinhardt. When he reached the interview, he was able to secure his role by talking about the portfolio projects he had created in his Web Development 1 and 2 courses, including a finance chatbot website with personalized financial planning assistance, and a cryptocurrency tracker pulling data from BNB/CoinMarketCap API.

During the course of his internship, Alex made an immediate impact by leaning on his coursework knowledge. For example, he wrote PowerShell scripts to help his clients develop proactive defensive cybersecurity measures to protect internal systems. Despite never having used this scripting framework before, Alex was able to lean on the similarities from his programming courses: "The courses I've taken with Rize taught me how to program, and those skills are transferable to so many languages, so it was way easier than starting from scratch."

Additionally, Alex has combined his technical expertise and his desire to uplift others by founding and leading CyberEagles, Reinhardt’s first-ever cybersecurity club and competition team. The club has become a place where students can practice ethical hacking, collaborate on projects, and prepare for competitions while fostering a sense of community for aspiring cybersecurity professionals on campus.

How did this experience impact your career trajectory?

The internship built Alex's confidence significantly. Especially as an international student navigating visa concerns, the internship showed him his true potential: “I have the capabilities, and it's all up to me."

He discovered important insights about landing a role in the Cybersecurity space, and was exposed to career options he hadn't considered, like being a contractor and how commonly companies outsource IT services. His biggest takeaway was seeing that his self-directed learning from his Rize courses mirror the real world: "Whenever you're out there, your boss isn't really on top of you the entire day.The ability to push a lot by myself and not having to rely on a teacher is important … and I end up learning way more just by doing that. "

From his role in leading CyberEagles, Alex now sees his future not only as a cybersecurity professional focused on defense and forensics, but also as someone who helps create opportunities for others to learn and grow in this field.

What's next for you?

Alex is graduating in May 2026. His primary goal is securing a job in the U.S. His next milestone is to continue sharpening his technical expertise, gaining additional certifications such as CompTIA Security+, and pursuing further hands-on experience in cyber defense and forensics. He will continue to lead CyberEagles to compete in cybersecurity competitions, and has a busy volleyball schedule coming up— in the spring he has 8 home games and 21 away games, and will travel as far as Kansas City.