I’m a Cybersecurity student at MMU, but I didn’t wait for graduation to join the industry. While working part-time as a chef, I blundered into bug bounty hunting, armed with curiosity. The learning curve was brutal, it left me feeling overwhelmed by informatives, duplicates and imposter syndrome. But then, over a flaming hob, I finally got the email "you have been awarded a $400 bounty". This talk is for anyone curious about bug bounties but unsure where to start. I’ll share how I learned, submitted my first reports, and secured an industry job two weeks after my first bounty. We’ll cover how to move from theory to real-world impact, persist when it feels like you're failing, and why bug bounties are a powerful gateway for underdogs to break into cybersecurity. I’m no expert, just a passionate student who kept going.