Some students take a gap year before furthering their education, but Cullman resident Raymond Pierce recently earned a master’s degree in cyber security more than 50 years after first receiving his bachelor’s degree.

Pierce earned a bachelor’s degree in education from the University of Memphis in 1969, and went back to school to earn a master’s degree in cyber security from Southern New Hampshire University this year to help reach his goal of becoming a full-time college instructor.

He said he has been teaching computer science classes at Wallace State Community College as an adjunct professor off-and-on for the last 10 years, but he wanted to expand his teaching role. 

“Teaching full time is what I would really like to do,” he said.

With that goal in mind, Pierce began looking for a way to make it happen, and Wallace State President Vicki Karolewics told him his best shot at getting a full-time position would be to go back to school.

“Dr. Karolewics encouraged me to get my masters, so that’s what I did,” he said.

With his aim to work as a full-time teacher, Pierce has come full circle from his first degree that he received in 1969.

Pierce said he taught in the Memphis School System just after he got his bachelor’s degree before moving on to the private industries of sales, transportation and marketing, and it was in the private sector that he got his first real taste for computers.

He was vice-president of marketing and sales for a company in Memphis when his boss came in one day and set a laptop on Pierce’s desk and told him that was his new computer. 

“I said ‘I don’t know anything about that,’” he said. “And he said ‘Well, you’re going to learn.’”

He did learn, mostly by teaching himself at first and then taking classes with Microsoft to become a certified professional, and he has also worked to receive Cisco certifications  to further his education.

Pierce said he first got a glimpse at how important computers and the internet would become in our daily lives while he was working for Sears, Roebuck & Co. and saw the company’s switch to a more efficient computer ordering system. 

Sears had catalog sales offices scattered around the country that would take orders from stores through tickets. Those tickets would have to be mailed from each store and make their way to the sales offices to be sorted and fulfilled, and it could take three or four days before the product was even sent to the customer.

Pierce said he was part of a conversion team that oversaw the company’s switch to an electronic ordering system that cut days off of that process. 

With the new system, stores would type their orders into a computer that would print out paper tape with holes punched in it, and the electronic information on that paper tape would be sent over telephone lines to the computers at the sales offices at the end of the day to immediately see all of the sales that had been made.

That may seem antiquated while looking through a modern lens, but it was a sight to see at the time, Pierce said. 

“That sounds like child’s play today but that was amazing,” he said. 

Pierce said that gave him his first inkling into what was coming in the future, and technology has continued to grow in the years since. 

With individuals, companies and schools moving more online today that they have ever been, there are a tremendous number of computer and cyber security jobs out there, and it’s important to prepare today’s students to fill those needs, Pierce said.

Now that he has the graduate degree he needed to teach full-time, Pierce said he would be happy to continue working at Wallace State or would be open to teaching at another community college in the area that had a position open up. 

“I’m just kinda looking to see where it all goes,” he said.

Pierce said he would encourage anyone else who is thinking about going back to school to do so, as education is an extremely important thing for people to continue throughout their lives.

“You’ve got to continue to take classes, continue to read,” he said. “If you ever stop learning, it’s just not a good thing.”

Tyler Hanes can be reached at 256-734-2131 ext. 238.