I have begun a “deep dive” into what sort of education and background are important for being a fully functional “system safety engineer.” This is an unusual profession because it is so broad and gets involved in so many different aspects of the design, development, use and misuse of all manner of “things” that an extremely wide, and deep, knowledge in many fields is required. An analogy came to my mind that the necessary background is a bit like swimming in a large lake where the education, knowledge and experience are like the water in the lake. It has to be all around you. It isn’t a knowledge of science, or engineering, or cultures, or management, or math or anything in particular – it is knowledge in all of those things and more. I have begun the task of making a list of the broad areas of interest, which will be future subdivided into areas of concerning within each of those, and finally into a list of specific topics that can then be incorporated into a description of expected “prerequisites” as well as course curricula useful for creating specific classes, workshops and other educational resources to assist a new person enter the field of System Safety Engineering. It is my hope that my project will be in collaboration with interested parties through the support of the International System Safety Society (ISSS). It is my expectation that we form a committee within the ISSS to accomplish this task in time to present the outcome to the August 2021 ISSS Conference that will be held in Portland, OR (covid willing), or at virtual conference should it not be possible to hold an in-person conference at that time.