(MARSHALL, Texas) – After fathering his first child at 16, Steven Moore thought that college seemed out of the question. Almost 20 years later, he received his associate degree in Cybersecurity from Texas State Technical College.
“I couldn’t have said five years ago that I would’ve had an associate degree,” Moore said.
Moore said TSTC’s performance-based education, which lets participating students progress at their own pace, gave him the flexibility to pursue a Cybersecurity degree online. He balanced his studies with working full time as a centralized traffic control operator for power generation company Luminant at its Tatum location.
“Working shift work, nights and days, I rotate back and forth pretty regularly,” he said. “When I saw that (Cybersecurity) was all online and self-paced, it was absolutely perfect.”
Moore said he was determined to earn perfect grades, often retaking assessments if he did not like his score. His hard work paid off when he graduated with a 4.0 GPA at TSTC’s recent Summer 2025 Commencement.
“I told my kids that if something is worth doing, it’s worth overdoing,” Moore said.
Moore said he hopes to continue working for Luminant in the company’s cybersecurity division. Jeff Robinson, a railroad operations superintendent for the company, said Moore’s new degree can give him many options.
“Cybersecurity is going to be around forever,” Robinson said. “He will surely be a good candidate for it.”
According to onetonline.org, information security engineers earn a median salary of $108,170 in Texas, where the number of these jobs was projected to grow 29% between 2022 and 2032.
Cybersecurity is available at TSTC’s Fort Bend County, Harlingen, Marshall, North Texas, Waco and Williamson County campuses, as well as online. The program offers an Associate of Applied Science degree, two certificates of completion, and an advanced technical certificate in Digital Forensics Specialist.
For more information on TSTC, go to tstc.edu.