During my time in university I worked on a research project in offensive cybersecurity. Specifically studying the effectiveness of teaching offensive security techniques and their likelihood of finding exploits or resulting in a compromise.
I actually greatly enjoyed the challenges of this work. And overall I do enjoy pentesting projects I am on (with the explicit permission of my employer) as well as addressing security issues whether they be bugs or my design.
This thesis was completed as part of an honors program at Ball State University. The paper with redactions\sensitive info removed is available on Ball State's Website. If you cannot load the link and would like a copy please feel free to send me an email.