George Washington University Athletics
Summer Spotlight: Gabriel Seemungal of Men's Soccer
7/18/2018 12:00:00 AM | Men's Soccer
On the soccer field, Gabriel Seemungal has established himself as a trusted cog in the GW men's soccer defense.
It's perhaps fitting that the rising junior from London, England, is spending the summer learning more about the field of cybersecurity as an intern at Darktrace in San Francisco. He's the first intern in the history of the international firm that has been hailed among the world's top up-and-coming tech companies.GWsports.com caught up with Seemungal to find out more about his summer:
What was the process for landing this internship?
The cybersecurity industry has fascinated me for some time, both in terms of its increasing societal impact but also the rapid growth in the sector from an economic perspective. I had identified Darktrace as one of the emerging market leaders in the sector - the company was only established in 2013, but five years later, it has offices in over 30 countries and has won a large number of impressive awards, including Fast Company's 2018 'World's 50 Most Innovative Companies', and The Wall Street Journal's 2017 'Top 25 Tech Company's to Watch'.
Darktrace's two main offices are in Cambridge in the UK and in San Francisco. I originally contacted the UK offices to see if there was an intern program and found out that was none in place. The company had grown so rapidly its main focus was hiring industry experts to join full-time positions, and it had not yet established a formal internship program.
After a series of discussion and interviews, I was lucky enough to be awarded the company's first intern position. It was decided that my strong interest in statistics meant that an analyst position in its San Francisco office would be the best fit for my background.
Hopefully I will have done enough to convince the company that interns are a great way of identifying and attracting new talent. The experience has certainly increased my belief that the cybersecurity industry is vitally important to maintain our economic strength and national security.
What is a typical day like in this internship? What are your duties/specific areas of focus?
The first week mainly comprised of security training and network learning, as well as shadowing employees from different sections of the company. From then on, once a basic understanding of the company and its processes was in place, I was set various projects, primarily focused on mapping certain Darktrace cyber intelligence to frameworks of threats produced by external organizations.
How does this fit into your career plans? What do you hope to learn this summer that will help you going forward?
Whether or not I pursue a career in cyber security is still unclear, but I have loved this internship and learned so much. I am majoring in Finance and Statistics as these are my passions, but this experience has certainly made me wonder whether a Computer Science degree could be more beneficial to my future endeavors.
Had you ever been in San Francisco before? How are you liking the city so far?
I have been to San Francisco once before, where I enjoyed a few days at a Stanford Soccer camp. However, I did not get to experience much of the actual city like I have this trip. I believe it to be a fun place, full of diversity and self-expression. The only downside is having to wake up early to catch the World Cup games!
How do you balance this internship with starting to get ready for the fall season?
I swim for 45-60 minutes before work from 6:30-7:30 a.m. Then every evening after work, I either go to the local YMCA gym or to the local field for some running or football-related training. I have met some great people over this trip and play regular pick-up games with students, some of whom are Division I soccer players attending summer classes at Cal-Berkeley. Hopefully, this has ensured my fitness levels when I return in a few weeks for preseason!
