Welcome everyone to master class this Thursday, November 3rd,
2022.
Is it amazing? It's already in November. We have a couple of
great presenters this evening.
Aaron and Fallon.
Will be presenting tonight.
And they are little lurt nervous. So.
Let's give him a big applause for coming on.
And letting us know.
Umm what they know because we love learning from everyone else
so.
Aaron, Are you ready? You wanna go ahead and get started?
You can't present if you are a guest, Aaron.
How would you like me to go first until Aaron can log in?
Yeah, let's go ahead and do that. I was going to call him,
OK.
see if that would help, but.
OK.
I think because he's in already, it's not working that way. Go
ahead and get it started. Well, he's he's in now. But Aaron, Are
OK.
you ready or we can have Fallon start.
Sorry, yeah, I could go first. That's fine.
OK.
Every one second.
I apologize, I just give me one second.
Aaron, do you need any help with anything?
Nope, I'm good.
OK, hopefully you should see my screen.
OK.
Yes.
Alright, cool. So my name is Aaron Lima. I currently work for
Amazon Web Services. I'm a solutions architect and So what
I'm going to do here is just kind of give an overview of
first the cloud and then the service that we're talking
about, which is AWS Systems manager.
So really the cloud when we talk about the cloud, what is it?
It's on demand delivery of IT services through the Internet
with pay as you go pricing. And when we look at that, there's a
ton of different functionality that comes from each one of the
cloud providers and AWS. We tend to bucket it up into these
specific categories. One of the categories that we're going to
talk about or focus about today is specifically around
management tools. And so when we talk about management tools, you
know, customers come to the cloud for many different
reasons, right? One of them is.
Cost savings, right? The ability to if you have something that's
pay as you go, you can use it as an electric bill, right? You
turn things off, you don't pay for them when you need them. You
turn them on and then you continue to consume or pay for
that. Also, staff productivity. What we find in reports is that
customers who have adopted a cloud run about 62% more
efficient with their IT staff. Their IT office be able to do
more customers who well architected inside of AWS
obviously are more operationally resilient and then.
The customers like to take care of the take advantage of the
carbon savings in the cloud as well.
But customers who do enterprise customers, large customers who
come to the cloud still have requirements. And one of those
requirements is to make sure that they're secure and
compliant. Obviously, they're coming to the cloud so that they
can be scalable and resilient and also be adaptable when we
look at the secure and compliant piece of what that really means
is that customers are looking to answer certain specific
questions. And so some of those questions are, well, what are
the security best practices that I should follow in the cloud or
how do I know if my resources that are in the cloud are
configured securely?
Or according to either my internal standards or to a third
party standard of whether it be NIST or whether it be sock two,
whether it's PCI DSS, right, all these different standards to
make sure that we can run our businesses and we're doing
things in a secure manner. One of the most important things
that attribute to that is how do you patch your instances or if
you have software in those instances, for instance, last
year, a big vulnerability that customers are concerned about
around Java was log 4J, right? So what version of log 4J?
You have in your ecosystem. How do you identify the ones that
are on the version that has a venerability? And then how do
you remediate that?
And then customers want to know, how do they perform asset
inventory, right? So the asset inventory could be what licenses
of software are installed in their estate or what are the
resources that they're using, what those resources look like?
How many are out there? And then how do they prevent
configurations that might lead to security vulnerabilities and
exposures? So these are the typical questions that customers
are asking and want to know how they can, you know, make sure
that they answer these. And so inside of AWS, really what it
comes down to is a service called Control Tower.
Control Tower enables 4 services that help across that category
that enables what's called AWS organization, which allows
customers to set policy based management across AWS accounts.
This is also enables what's called used to be called single
sign on. But now it's called Identity Center, which allows
customers to aggregate the authentication information
authorization information into their AWS estate and then also
work in integration with the tools such as Azure AD or Active
Directory on Prem or Octa.
But the tools that really are become important for customers
to have on and net control tower, make sure that it gets
turned on across every AWS account is cloud trail and when
Cloud Trail is is every EP I activity that is happening to an
EWS account is locked and creates a Jason BLOB so
customers can track who's been doing what, where, when and why
and then configures A is a service that helps them to kind
of audit or understand all of the resources they have in their
AWS account. What it looks like in terms of configuration.
But the service that we're going to focus on today is 80 with
systems manager. So this service is focused specifically to be
the operational hub to customers should be able to see their
infrastructure and respond to that.
We'll talk a little bit about systems managers. Systems
Manager is a hybrid tool, so this means that there's a lot of
customers that use systems manager to manage AWS.
Umm, uh EC2 instances, but they also use it to manage things on
premises as well or in other cloud providers. And the reason
for that is because this service is a free service provided to
AWS customers, including the things that they manage outside
of AWS. Customers can manage about 1000 instances outside of
AWS at known cost. This tool also allows has extensibility so
it has integrations with tools like Ansible and PowerShell DSC
as well as Chef Inspec.
So that customers can understand the configuration of their
actual inside of the operating system of their EC2 instances.
The other some agent is open source. It's written in the GO
language. It's available on GitHub. A lot of customers that
wanna see what the security compliance is, they can just go
to GitHub and see how it's configured, what's going on. And
it's also cross-platform. So if you have the SSM agent being
that it's written in go, you can use the same mechanism to do
configuration management against Linux systems as well as Windows
systems.
And then finally, it does have extensibility in terms of what
it can collect from an inventory perspective.
Now Systems manager has it. I like to like get it to a Swiss
army knife. Right. There's a bunch of capabilities that you
have. You have a file in your Swiss army knife. You might have
a scissors. You know, there's different things that you can
do, but at the heart of it really is run command. And what
run command is the ability to run commands remotely against
EC2 instances that could be running LS commands, PowerShell
or Bash scripts against these EC2 instances. And so you can
run any script, any command against that and then.
It will log it to cloudtrail so then I know who has done that.
You also with run command. You can then go into these operating
systems and then know whether they meet to patch compliance.
So do they actually meet the patch and regulatory compliance
that expect, right? Do you have the latest and greatest patches
from a security standpoint?
So with that, I'm just gonna change real quick my screen
share.
And then just jump over to my.
Console.
So I've really seen my console here that I've went ahead and
I've gone ahead and deployed two different EC2 actually four
different EC2 instances. So we see that I have one that's of a
Linux EC2 instance flair and three that are of Windows.
If I go to systems manager, I can go ahead and take a look at
that run command first.
So we'll go to run command, we'll click on run a command and
we'll just pick. In this case, since I have a bunch of.
You see two instances that are.
Windows. We'll go ahead and run PowerShell.
But we'll see you is that there's these things called
command documents. So the command documents allow us to be
able to run. You can think of it like automation, workflow that
happens inside of the operating system. And in this case, it'll
run specifically to the PowerShell Shell script. So I'm
going to do something that's kind of dumb. I'm running the
same a Linux command inside of a windows. Thankfully, PowerShell
allows us to do this and do LS, which will list out all of the
things that are in that particular directory that this
will get executed against.
In this case I can also specify tags, so one of the things
that's important in the clouds is manage things by tags, cause
you're gonna manage them at scale. So you want to have tags
that are set for.
Reporting on finances, right. So you have what are called
financial control tags and then you also have tags for
operational purposes. So you can use these tags to target a
specific set of instances inside of AWS. You can also create
resource groups. Resource groups allow you to do A tag query to
group resources based upon, let's say an application tag or
a specific tag that belongs to a group. In this case, I'm going
to choose these tags these instances manually.
So I'm just going to go ahead and cherry pick each one of
these boxes that are of Windows flavor. Obviously, I can also
run in Linux because PowerShell has that ability to also run
Linux boxes.
Now in this case I'm you could output what the standard out of
the commands are to an S3 bucket, but in this case I'm
gonna have it pushed to another AWS service is called Cloud
Watch logs. So in cloud watch logs that can take a look at
what actually happened. When I ran this command.
I wanna do cloud watch alarms here. I could do that as well,
but I can also see what this command would be at the CLI
level so I can copy this out and run it in the CLI if I need. You
know if I wanted to do that locally instead of doing it here
in the console. So go ahead and click run and what we should see
is that it's going to execute against those 3 instances. So
these instances already have the SSM agent installed. One of the
things that's important besides having the SSM agent installed
is having what's called an instance role attached to the
EC2 instances.
And so an instance role gives these instances the ability to
talk to specific AWS services, and in this case the instance
role that's attached to these two instances allow it to
interact with the SM API.
So we see here that these three have run successfully. I can
click into one of these instance ID and I can just take a look at
what the output was. So we see that it ran it in the C Windows
system 32 directory and I see all the files that are there.
I can also go to Cloud watch and see that same output. So if I
wanted to do something like a catch some type of log stream or
something in the command that let's say whatever out,
whatever, I can catch it with a cloud watch alarm and then
trigger another set of automation based upon on that.
So that's a a run command in a. In a real quick shell.
If we take a look also in terms of Patch manager.
And what I was mentioning before.
So the way that Patch Manager works is as you can see here,
all of my EC2 instances are compliant, so I can get a really
quick snapshot of. Do I comply to the patch patching that I
expect or do I not?
And the way that that works is that you set up what's called
patch baselines, so each one of these patch baselines you can
think of it as a watermark of where that EC2 instance should
be. And so if I go ahead and create a patch baseline, I can
name it whatever it may be, select the operating system of
choice. You'll see that these are the different operating
systems that are supported by systems manager. I actually have
worked with a customer who, as you systems manager to configure
Raspberry Pi devices out in the field that are attached to
signs. So think about like add signs.
Then they wanna update what's on the at sign.
I'm so really there's a lot of power in terms of what can
interact with in this case. We'll just keep it as windows.
And the reason I'm going to do that is because we all,
hopefully most of us understand that in Windows every Tuesday,
2nd Tuesday of the month is usually patch Tuesday. So when
we take a look at this rate, I can pick what products I want to
patch a Windows 10, Windows 712, whatever versions. I can also
specify the classification of the.
Patches as well as the severity.
We'll just say all in this case and all here and then the auto
approval rule will specify when those patches are approved to be
deployed. So in this case, if I was to keep this as Darrow, any
patches that came out into the wild today would automatically
be deployed into this to the EC2 instances that are attached to
this patch compliance. But typically what customers want to
do is specify a release date they want to lock that data in.
So in this case, we're just going to say, let's go back and
make sure that the second Tuesday of October.
Whatever patches were available, we're now going to have that in
the environment.
And so from a compliance perspective, I can also start to
communicate if it doesn't comply, they want this to be
something that's critical, high, medium. How do I want this to
report back to my operations team or how do I want this to
report back to my organization in general? So I can set
critical.
And I can also do applications as well. So from a Microsoft
perspective, if I wanted to patch, let's say Active
Directory or I wanted to patch exchange, if I was running that
and I wasn't using O365I can then do that as well?
So these rules will specify what are the patches that get
involved or get deployed into the environment and then I can
also do patch exceptions so I can say these are the patches
that must be here. These are the patches that I never want to see
in my environment because they break my third party application
and so I can also have control over there and then I would
create this patch baseline.
Once the patch baselines created, I then can assign EC2
instances to these patches via patch groups so I could take one
of these patches. I can say let's modify the patch groups
and what this will be is A tag that's assigned to each one of
the EC2 instances with the value key value of Patch Space group
and then the value can be whatever I want and it'll make
sure that this patch baseline assigns to those set of
instances.
Now what customers typically would wanna do is in this case,
they would set up these patch baselines and then they would
set up what's called a State Manager Association, which is
essentially running run command on Cron so that they can scan
for which patches are missing. And in this case, what we're
going to do is we're going to use the next part, which is
customers can then schedule what's called the maintenance
window. So they can say, hey, every Saturday I'm going to do
some maintenance in my environment because people are
not working, some of that maintenance may be doing
patches. So I can set up tasks to run at certain times.
I want all those tasks are complete, one of them being
installed patches you know if the before the maintenance
windows get closed out or during the time of the maintenance
window.
So if I go ahead and do run command here.
Then I'll pick a patch.
Baseline one.
See that there's this WS applied patch baseline.
And then there's the operation of either I can scan or install.
If I was to pick also.
Actually run patch baseline.
I'll have scanner install and then I also can change the
reboot behavior. So what happens with the SSM agent is that the
SSM agent will respond to exit codes either exit code 3010 in
the case of Windows or exit 190. The case of Linux and it will
proceed to reboot the box and continue to reboot the box and
make sure that the patching equates to the patch baseline.
So the in terms of orchestrating reboots and everything like
that. The SSM agent here will handle it, but if a customer
wanted to suppress that, they could by saying no reboot.
And then reboot it in their own time.
And so.
Again, we could do the same thing here and just I'll put to
code watch or to S3 and then we can run that patch baseline and
then I have an error somewhere above. Ooh, I didn't select my
EC2 instances.
And then we'll say run.
And so this will go ahead and and collect that patch
information that we want.
At the same time, in this environment, I already have an
inventory set up right, so the other thing that I can do is if
I want to understand or query what software is installed in my
environment, I can easily do that using the inventory of
systems manager. So in this case the real quick time check OK,
cool. And in this case we see that I have OS versions of
Windows Server 2019 and Linux and so with this I can also have
a mechanism where back to the log 4 J situation I can pick up
what software is installed using config.
And then trigger remediation of the version that I don't want in
my entire.
Go back to my presentation.
Also check the chat.
OK.
So we kind of talked about run command Patch manager. We also
we didn't talk about session manager but session manager is
the ability to be able to a lot of customers now inside of AWS
are getting rid of jump boxes or locking down ports such as 22 or
3389. So those are the ports the remote into windows boxes or
Linux boxes obviously from a security perspective you
wouldn't want these ports to be open to the world and it's a
very common mistake that customers make with they say hey
it's really easy. I need to get into the box.
So I'm going to open this up so I can get into it. Well, if
you're opening it up for yourself to work from home, you
may inadvertently also open it up to that. You know, hacker or
attacker that's sending anywhere in the world. So it's session
manager. What this does is that via the SSM agent, we can tunnel
over 443 over an encrypted tunnel to the EC2 instance from
either the console or from the AWS CLI that's installed on your
box. And then using the IM credentials or integrated with
Active Directory.
We can then also have that cloud trail where we track who
actually logged into this box to take a look at it. But most
customers at this point because they have the run command
availability and they could do that via you know, via API, they
don't have to log in so much into their EC2 instances and
then they reserve session manager as a break glass.
And then finally, as the inventory piece that we talked
about.
Now in terms of additional resources inside of AWS, right,
there's what we have the AWS well architected which talks
about best practices inside of AWS from architecting
applications or even infrastructure. There's also the
Amazon Builders Library which talks about not just building
but how Amazon builds in the cloud or builds distributed
systems in general. There's also the Solutions library, which I
think is a good place to go to see and reverse engineer what
has been built by Amazon employees. So inside the
solutions library, they'll be different confirmation
templates.
As well as sometimes some Terraform modules that show you
how to deploy third party applications like Microsoft
Active Directory or even let's say third party tools like Net
app filers or whatever inside of you AWS.
And then there's also AWS White Papers and guys that talk about
different, you know, best practices that you can do when
you start inside of Amazon Web Services.
And then from a certification perspective, so that AWS Systems
manager does show up in some of the certification tests,
specifically in the DevOps engineering task as well as the
Solutions architect professional, they'll be
questions that revolve around how do you secure or patch EC2
instances that also be questions around how do you remediate
other things inside of an operating system with
automation. And so those systems manager questions come up as
well as the security specialty and obviously the PRO exams are
based on the solutions architect associate.
An assist OPS admin associate so any questions that you seen that
professional will be fair game in those lower level
certifications as well?
Any question?
Do you have those certifications, Karen?
But yeah, I do. I have.
I have all the original 5 certifications and I just passed
these specialty certification.
The Security specialty certification.
That's the.
That's about. That's huge.
Yeah, yeah.
I'm very impressed. Thank you. That was.
Amazing.
But I've also, I mean, you know, in fairness, I I worked at AWS
for seven years. I started out at what's called a technical
Right.
account manager, which is when customers have operational
issues, whether it be scaling. So like, I've worked some of the
largest events. So like the Super Bowl, when you have
somebody who's doing an ad during the Super Bowl as a Tam,
we kind of work with them to make sure that, hey, when when
they have that ad that shows up in the Super Bowl and it directs
to the website that the website is going to be able to scale and
take all of the traffic.
From the customers or the people are showing interest and then
after I did that for about 2 1/2 years, then I've been in the
solutions architect role where we advise customers on how to
architect or if they want to know actually the other day
there was a customer that I spoke to that had a security
breach and so they wanted to talk about well, how do we know
that we're following best practices and we don't have a
breach again. And so then we kind of get engaged and help
talking through those scenarios.
That's very impressive. Absolutely. I mean, we're
looking for faculty that have all of that and and a masters
too, though. But I mean it's it's hard to find people that
have all those, those shirts and skills like you do already.
Awesome.
Yep, I mean.
And that was really great, Aaron. I'm really impressed.
Wow.
Yeah. And and.
Yeah, that was wonderful. I mean, we may call you up on some
I.
of that AWS work too, so.
Yeah, for sure for sure. I I also had a chance to.
One of the other students had interest in the they pinged me
when they saw me on LinkedIn and I got them hooked up with some
information about the military programs that AWS has as well,
because AWS has actually invest a lot in military personnel. So
there's programs where they will bring military folks in on a,
you know, kind of internship of work, learn basis. So my team
right now, we actually have like three or four former military
folks that do what I do.
That's fantastic. That's great.
That is so great.
Cool.
Sorry that it's not something cooler like AI or ML, but.
You know, it's great information because I, you know, it's great
when they can see that you can go from path to path to path.
You know, you start with the one and that's the way a works with
Google works that way. You know, they're all starting to really
do that to give you a path and that's really good to see with
AWS.
And.
And they, you know, I mean, they're kind of following the
Microsoft model because, like Microsoft, at a certain point
had the, I think it was called the MCP. And then they had the
MSA. And then you became an MCSE. So there was, like, kind
of like a set of tiers to get to the top certification.
Right.
Umm. And you know VMware does the same thing. Cisco has the
same thing, so I think it's good because it allows you know if,
like for me as someone when I first started like there was no
way I could get.
One of the advanced certifications I just didn't
have the knowledge or experience, but being able to
get that first level of of certification super helpful
because at least it gave me a fighting chance to get a foot in
the door and then as as you get more experience then you can get
Sure. Yeah.
you know you know higher certifications over time.
Absolutely, that's what's great. It really it starts you
somewhere and you just, you know, start from there and start
growing from there. That's just great.
Yeah, I mean, not that I wanna throw a drink. You know, thing
in there. But you started from the bottom. Now we here you know
that the kind of.
Yeah.
Work.
Right.
Well, thank you so much because that was wonderful. They got a
Thank you for letting me present.
real good glimpse.
I appreciate it.
Of how that works. Yeah, perfect.
Yeah, you're you're your degree will just be the icing on the
cake.
Yeah, it's absolutely, yeah.
You're already there.
And an internship too. There you go. And helping the internship
Yeah.
too. There you go. Well, thank you very much, Aaron.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Fallon, Are you ready?
I am wait a set the bar. Aaron, I don't wanna go after them.
But I am ready. I'm just going to share my screen.
Yeah.
OK. Can everyone hear and see my screen OK.
Yes.
OK. Thank you. So I started my internship in August and I
remember the first meeting we were told.
Everyone will have to present and master class, and I remember
thinking shoot, but I didn't say shoot and so.
I am not an IT person. I don't have any professional training
in IT. I actually work in governance and compliance and I
wanted to choose a subject that I thought that I was a subject
matter expert.
And also, although we work together remotely, I wanted to
present something that would give you all visibility. And so
the person that I am and kind of.
Umm, the things that I've seen and.
What had the situations that's made me who I am, the person I
am today? And so in order to do that, I would have to give you a
little bit of historical context of my history. So when people
see me, they actually think that I'm younger than I am because
I'm like 411. And I actually graduated in the early 2000s
like I graduated in 2001 and I.
I was immediately told that I was going to college, even
though I had no idea what I wanted to pursue educationally.
I I had no idea what I wanted to do for a living. I was an 18
year old kid and my mother wanted me to enroll at Saint
Xavier University, which is a university here in Chicago,
which is where I'm from. When I initially enrolled at Saint
Xavier, the tuition was about maybe a little less than $10,000
a year.
And room and board was like $5000. And so my first semester
sophomore year, the school informed us that they had
increased the tuition to a flat rate and the tuition would be 28
five a year. Whether you take three credit hours or 15 credit
hours. And at that point in my sophomore year, I was estranged
from my mother. So I was actually living on campus. And
so if I continued at Saint Xavier University, by the time I
was able to get my degree.
I was looking at $134,000 and then when I was presenting for
my presentation tonight, I just wanted to look to see what the
tuition cost was now.
And so to give you like a little bit of of idea of what that is,
what that looks like now. It was for a four year for tuition, it
was almost $136,000. And then if that student also needed room
and board, it was about $47,000 after four years. So we're
looking at about almost $183,000 a year. And so basically as you
can see from this slide.
Obviously, with the amount of financial aid I could receive
from the government, the math clearly was not adding up and so
I couldn't continue my education at Saint Xavier University and.
That made me bitter and made me resent school and made me just
kind of like, think when you know what? I'll just find a job
like, you know, I won't. I won't pursue college. That's not
really. Maybe that wasn't for me. And so I started. I was
always working two jobs. And so when I left school, I gave up
my, my job that I had to work study. And so I was working in
retail and retail and fashion on my first love and.
So I thought well, maybe I can find a good job without a
degree. And so since I love retail so much, I was like, I
started to look at any opportunities within the company
and I found out they had an assistant buyers program, but I
needed a degree. So then I was like, OK, well, maybe I
shouldn't pursue retail. Maybe I should think about something
else that I want to do. And so I was like, well, I've always like
helping people. What about social service? And so I started
looking for jobs and social service.
And I started working for a company that was nonprofit
social services, and I worked there for about 6 years and it
was more money that I earned from retail. But out of the six
years I worked there, I probably got a raise one time in six
years. And so by that third year, I needed to find a second
job. And I just kind of felt like I was kind of like losing
hope. I felt lost. You know, there was no professional
development. There was high turnover.
As I explained, I never got a raised and so we all know that.
Usually we spend most of our time either at our home or at
work, and when either of those environments are have that
instability, it impacts you mentally. And so I kind of
became in a slump and I just kind of kept working two jobs
until I can figure out what I wanted to do. And so it had been
about four years since I had left Saint Xavier. And so I'm
like, OK, I want a better job. I'm looking for a job. I'm not
finding any job.
Maybe I should try school again. And so it was like.
I want a better job, but I can't afford college and so.
At that point, I was in my early 20s, and so most of my
experience that I had gained was in social service. Since I have
been working at this agency for six years. So I'm like, OK, I'll
try to find another job, higher paying job and social service.
And when I was completing the applications, you get to that
section when it actually about education, it's like master's
degree master's degree, some college or high school diploma.
And I will always check some college experience and it always
just reminded me of like, having, like, some college
syndrome.
Meaning, like I've attended college, I've earned credit
hours, but I have no degree. So it was just kind of like, where
do I go from here? So?
I was working with someone who had enrolled in divide
university and she was like, why don't you just give it a try?
And I since I wasn't getting any jobs, I was thinking, well,
maybe it's because I don't have a degree. And so I enrolled into
right university. I was OK the first two semesters. Then I got
the phone call Miss Brown. You don't have enough financial aid
to cover next term. You either have to take out a private loan
or we need you to pay in cash.
So what happened? I dropped out of school because I'm just like
I'm trying. I'm trying. I'm trying, but I just can't figure
out how I'm going to pay for school. Right? And so I started
looking for a job.
And I don't want you all to think I'm a job hopper because
it's like I stay at a job for.
A number of years and I try to work myself up and I don't ever
leave one job until I have another one waiting for me. And
so finally, after applying for several jobs, I got a call from
an organization called start early.
I started working at Star early in 2013 and I still work at
start early and the environment and the experience for Star
early was completely different than that did in John I that did
end job I just described to you all.
When I started that job, it was like this is exactly where I
need to be to become the person who I'm supposed to be. They had
good professional development, great benefits, annual raises
and all. Though I didn't think it would be important at the
time, they offered tuition reimbursement when sin the first
three years that I worked there, I was promoted twice. And so I
started to feel this success and I didn't want to leave. I didn't
wanna lose that feeling of success.
And I remember thinking, So what now, you know, like you're not
broke anymore. You're actually happy. You actually love coming
to work. What's next? And so, you know, when you're in a
environment, when you're working with people who have PHD's and
masters degrees and you're the only one in the room, although
you feel honored to be in the presence, to be heard amongst
those people.
You still kind of feel like I don't belong here. You know I
don't have.
Any form of degree and so I just felt like something was missing.
You know, I worked for a good organization. I'm happy I have a
reasonable salary.
I still don't have a degree, so I have to make a decision. Is
that the missing piece? Is that why I still even though I should
be incredibly happy?
Why is it that I'm happy, but still like a part of me is
missing and so I would meet with my manager regularly and we had
a pretty good relationship and she said Fallon, I know that,
you know, you always say that you don't want to go back to
school and you are very adamant about that. And she was telling
me like the, you know, kind of like the good trace that she's
identified with me. And she felt like that eventually not having
a degree will be a barrier for me because she knew what I
wanted to do. And so.
She said. Have you ever heard of Purdue Global? And I was like,
I've heard of Purdue and she was like no Purdue global. And I was
like, is that even accredited? And she was like, yes, she was
like one of your colleagues just actually enrolled in a Masters
program. And she was like, you know, I read about it and maybe
it's something that you should have least reach out to see if
maybe you will be able to get your degree, if that's what you
want to do. I didn't act on it immediately because at that
point, I was just.
I just knew I wasn't going back to school. I just kind of had
given up on that. No matter how I felt, you know, I just was
like, that's not for me. And so I finally reached out to Purdue
Global and I have to say when you already.
Undecided about something that first point of contact is
extremely important. The staff person that I talked to from
financial aid offered me something that I had never
experienced when I was speaking to someone from Saint Xavier
University or DeVry University, and the one thing that I could
really appreciate and respect was the transparency.
She knew, you know, I told her. You know the experience that I
had with limited funding and she, you know, walked through
that with me. And she said, this is the amount you have left.
This is what it costs to go to our school each term, she was
able to tell me she was able to give me something tangible,
meaning that for the first time, I'm actually singing where my
money is going and understanding the process. And so she was able
to tell me, you know, when you get a refund, don't use those
access to funds, you know.
Sign a waiver and we'll send that back to the lender and then
down the line where you need aid. Then you can use that and
after that she was able to tell me the exact semester, the exact
term that I would run out of financial aid. And so I was able
to plan for that. And so Purdue all for me like the
affordability, the flexibility, any staff that I ever came in
contact with was very helpful and knowledgeable. And in my
undergrad, I was able to petition credits for life
experience. So that actually helped me save time and money.
And so.
Overall, I knew what I needed to do and I I saw the light at the
end of the tunnel. I'm like, OK, this might be it and so.
Umm, I had a plan. So throughout this presentation I hope that
you picked up that from many years of my life. I've always
worked two jobs. I mean a second part time job was like kind of
like my hustle. And so I had a plan and I started working for
Uber eats on the weekend. And so I use that $5000 tuition
reimbursement from my job every weekend. I would work 12 hours
for Uber eats. And whenever I would cash out, Uber eats.
I would give that money to Purdue Global because I really
wanted to graduate and I knew that was the bigger picture. As
tired as I was working seven days a week, there was a goal
that I was working to obtain and so I shared. Uber eats had
actually reached out to all of its drivers, and they were
looking for drivers with a unique story, and I share my
story with overheads and I actually landed a national
commercial with Uber to share my story.
And I don't wanna play it for you all, but it's in my
presentation. The reason being is I shot this commercial during
the pandemic. And so I had pandemic pounds on me and then
it was like 20 degrees. So I had to like 4 layers of clothing.
And so I looked bigger than what I really am. But I just wanted
to share my Uber commercial with you all.
Education is something that is extremely precious to me as a
woman of color. Bettering myself may finish school, but no one
explains to me how to pay for college. I tried to go the
traditional route for part time jobs, but it didn't offer me the
flexibility that I needed. I liked the flexibility driving
with Uber. I can drive when I want to. When I was able to pay
my way through school, that gave me such a sense of independence
and empowerment. My name is Fallon Brown. I choose
flexibility.
Sorry about that. And so.
Over in addition to the the money I was earning as a drive
in addition to the tuition reimbursement, Uber actually
paid me $2000 to shoot that commercial and I just use that
money.
To pay for my, you know, to pay for my tuition. And after all
that hard work, I was actually able to earn my degree. My
bachelor's of science and business. And so.
After I got my degree, my boss told me she was like I was
waiting for you to finish school because I wanted to promote you
again. And so as soon as I, you know, received my degree, I got
another position.
And Umm, in that position I stayed a year.
And then I got promoted another time, and this time since I had
my degree, I was able to move to our corporate office in downtown
Chicago while working in corporate, sorry, compliance and
governance and also contracts. And so I have my plan. I
achieved my goal, but now I wanted to focus on my dream.
Like what is my long term dream? And just to, I'm sorry, just to
go back, if you all wondering like, why are you in the IT
program?
So as I mentioned that last promotion I received as a
compliance manager, I work with closely with the IT team and I
work in governance and I work in.
Contracts and compliance. And so a lot of that work that I was
that I was seeing. I felt like when I was looking at my career
path.
I would always see in the experience and education they
were always asking for like a IT related degree. And so although
I planned on staying with that company, I just wanted to make
sure that I was making the correct moves within my career.
And so as I said, now that I had my plan and I was, you know, had
got my degree received my degree, I wanted to think about
what my next steps were for, like my dream.
So throughout this presentation, I've always told you that I
worked two jobs. It was always in retail and I love fashion.
And then I've always. I also explained to you that I worked
in nonprofit for a number of years. And so once I finish my
Masters degree and now that I I can afford to actually want to
start my my own online handbag boutique, the name line B is me.
My name is Fallon Brown and LON.
The last three letters of my name and B is the first initial
of my last name, and once I feel like that business is
sustainable when state stable, I want to start a nonprofit for
women who like me. They may have come from a domestic violence
background, or if they have some type of financial barrier and
they can't get in the workforce. I wanna create a nonprofit that
will help women like that. And part of that would be.
Umm, like job training, resume building and also if they don't
have any money they can't dress to go to interviews or they they
can't dress for for the jobs that they get and so.
I intend on also providing those garments, and so that nonprofit
will be called goes and garments.
And throughout this presentation, I really hoped
that you picked up that I am a person that.
Believes in motivation and strength, and I always watch
will rear motivational books to get me through what I was going
through at such a young age, and I also work, watch motivational
videos. And so the video that I have in my next slide is about 6
minutes, so I'm gonna let it play out for about 3 minutes
because I don't wanna go over time, but I just really hope
that you take something away from my presentation. And I hope
that this next video will really help you think about what you
wanna do and how you're gonna get there.
Let me tell you something you already know.
The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It's a very mean and
nasty place, and I don't care how tough you are. It will beat
you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it.
You, me and nobody is going to hit as hard as life, but it
ain't about how hard you hit. It's about how hard you can get
hit and keep moving forward, how much you can take and keep
moving forward.
That's how winning is done.
Hey, it's temporary. It may last for many.
For an hour or a day, or even a year, but eventually it will
subside and something else will take its place. If I quit,
however, it will last forever.
The margin for error is so small I mean 1/2 a step too late or
too early and you don't quite make it 1 half second too slow,
too fast. You don't quite catch it there, inches we need are
everywhere around us.
They're in every break in the game, every minute, every
second.
You got a dream.
You gotta protect it.
Something selves they wanna tell you you can.
We want something go get.
Here.
Don't be afraid to fail. You can't always win. But don't be
afraid of making decisions.
You have to believe that something different can happen.
He who says he can and he who says he can't are both usually
right.
That most of you say you want to be successful, but you don't
want it bad. You just kind of want it. You don't want it
badder than you want a party. You don't want it as much as you
want to be cool you most of you don't want success as much as
you want to sleep.
My deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear
is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens
us.
Deep down, deep, deep down. Ask yourselves, who do you want to
be figuring out for yourselves? What makes you happy, no matter
how crazy it may sound to the people?
Make a choice like you just decide what it's going to be,
who you're going to be, how you're going to do it. Just
decide.
Why not?
Why cannot be the MVP of the league? Why cannot be the best
player in the league?
I don't see why. Why? Why can't I do that?
What you said to the kid?
He did about how hard you hit. It's about how hard you can get
hit and keep moving forward, how much you can take.
Forward.
Get up.
And don't ever give up.
And so I just really wanted to play, like I said, it's like a
little bit over 6 minutes and I don't wanna go overtime, but I
just really wanted to share that video with you all because you
know, when you are, when I think about where I came from and
where I'm at now, honestly, sometimes it's hard for me not
to cry when I watch those kind of videos because.
You know, when I was a young lady, 18 and 19 years old,
sometimes they got to the point where, because I was estranged
from my mother, I had to sleep in the car. And now you know
what I mean, like 15 or 20 years later, I'm making six figures. I
have my degree. I have my masters degree in a matter of
weeks. And that's something that I never thought would happen.
And so although I hope it doesn't sound dramatic, those,
that's something that I take pride in. And as I continue.
My next step for like my dream, I hope that I can continue to
stay motivated because just because I made check off a box
or just because I, you know, achieve a goal, I am the kind of
person that I'm trying to figure out how to get to a point where
I want to be.
Umm. And so I just really wanna thank you all for.
Taking the time and actually attending this Masters class and
hearing my story and you know, like I said, I wish you all the
best and I hope that you all can achieve all of your dreams and
that is it for me.
No.
That was like a graduation speech.
It could be our keynote speaker that was pretty awesome, Valen
Thank you.
really.
That was really awesome. Congratulations on everything
Yeah.
you've done.
Yeah.
That was really, really, really passionate and.
Cut him. No dry eye in the group. I'm sure that was great.
I'm going to go back and watch the rest of that video, but but
I really liked your own video too. I cannot believe you did
that, and I can't believe they only paid you $2000. You, you
you deserve it a lot more.
But that was that was really cool commercial too.
Awesome, great story.
Thank you. It was a really good experience.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, just just an awesome story you have. You can write a
book now.
I appreciate you sharing.
Always say.
You know, communication is good when you don't have any
questions to ask after.
That was pretty good.
Thank you, Scott.
Scott has been my friend throughout like this entire
process of our internship because we actually have a class
last term and like he would all like I said, I'm not an IT
person. You know, I'm a compliance person and I always
reach out to Scott and he always come through to, you know, to
kind of help me. And when I was like, man, I'm like, I'm working
this job because I had just got promoted and I was a manager. So
I was like, working crazy. But then I had our class, and then
this class. And so me and Scott kind of like, I actually can't
wait to meet him when we like.
Graduate in February because it is funny how you form these
remote relationships with your colleagues and they actually,
you know, turn out to be pretty meaningful.
Likewise, Fallon.
I'm glad you're gonna go to the ceremony. It'll be a great day.
I can't wait. I already have my outfit picked up.
I bet I bet you earned every minute of it. So enjoy.
To be cold. But let me nice.
Yeah, I I hope it's cold cause I had bought something like in the
summer time that was on sale that I hope I couldn't wear, so
it better be cold that day.
I I think you can count on that in February.
Awesome. I can't wait to see you guys. I watched the videos. I
don't get to go to all the graduations, but I would just
watch the video a couple weeks ago it was it was a tearjerker,
but it was really good. I cried through the whole thing.
Graduations really, really touching.
It's a great time.
Yeah. Because you think about.
All the sacrifices that you made, the message program that
That's the thing, Scott. I mean, when you watch the, when you
easy.
watch the video, Scott, you see all the the families and the
babies and the kids and saying that's my mommy, that's my
daddy. And it's like, oh, my God, I'm just a wrecked by then.
Is is tough. Man is tough. I've seen people go through it, but
A lot.
to actually go through it myself, I'm just like, man, this
this will change your personality.
And, well, you'll you'll totally have the chills. I I do. It's
just it's just crazy. Yeah.
I agree.
It's a great day.
Hopefully everyone here will be there.
I think that's all we have for today, right? It was just the
two.
Say both both presentations were just own point.
Yeah, that was really awesome.
OK.
Both of them.
I'm.
Pressing stuff.
I don't think we could take anymore.
Anybody else have anything to share, Tina, any words of
wisdom?
No, I was just gonna say I don't think we could take any more
than that. It was like the first one was so technically
impressive that, you know, I feel really not very educated.
Right.
And the second one was just so moving it was.
Little little much, too. It's like, huh? I'm spent. Thank you.
Great.
Great job both of you and I can't wait to see everyone at
Well.
graduation on the videos at least.
Couple more weeks.
Well, awesome job. Awesome job, everyone.
We'll go ahead and.
Close out the meeting. If no one has any other questions and have
a great night, have a great weekend.
And we'll see you next week.
Goodnight everyone.
Goodnight.