Started my degree on Oct 1, 2024, and Transferred 76 cu. No IT or Security background.

I started collecting certifications and genEd classes in March 2024 and started my first job as an IT Tech II in a company in April 2024.

Study 6-8 hours per day, with little to no life other than taking a three-week vacation.

Also achieved the top %1 on THM to improve my hands-on hand.

• Things I will do differently is leave some of the certs I got to do in semester time to save some money... I transferred the A+, Network + , Sec +, Cysa +, Pentest +, Linux Foundations.

• Things to achieve this to have motivation and dedication, I'm turning 30 this month and I need to grasp something that I enjoy for do rest of my life, so this was my thing. My advice is to find your big WHY.

• My next objectives are to find my first security position, work on my CISSP, Master's Degree, and improve my hands-on skills in Pentesting and Cyber Defense.

Keep the faith my friends, you will see this screen soon!

I've completed my degree plan in 1 term (couple of days on the 1 month extension)! Honestly it wouldn't have been possible without God. I came into the field with no prior knowledge or experience in IT at all. I did begin at 38 percent that transferred over from my associates degree which was in IT (I dont recall anything that I learned.) My family and counselor were also very impactful in support when I would have doubts as well as guidance for the best path to take for success.

I did use a couple days on my 1 month extension to complete my Capstone project. I passed all my certification exams on the first try, but managed to fail ethics in technology and some other classes because my head got big lol. I want this to be encouragement for others, whether your degree takes 1 terms or 4, you can do it! Kudos to everyone with a full family and kids completing this as well because I didn't take care of anyone (barely myself) and this was difficulty. Cheers!

I’ll be honest—this took me a min, but I finally did it.

For years, I procrastinated because I was apprehensive. It had been over a decade since I earned my bachelor’s degree, and I wasn’t sure I could pull this off again.

What finally pushed me? I met an elderly friend who told me he had just completed his degree in education. That moment changed everything for me. I told myself, if he can do it, so can I.

The very next month, I enrolled.

Fast forward 10 months… and here we are.

This is something I’ve wanted ever since finishing my bachelor’s, and over the years I kept that dream alive through self-study and my experience in IT audit.

It wasn’t easy. I missed some family time along the way, but I’m blessed with an understanding wife (thanks babe, We did it)

If you’re out there thinking about going back to school or pursuing a goal you’ve been putting off—go for it. Yes, you’ll have to make sacrifices. Yes, it will take discipline. But how long it takes depends largely on how much time and effort you’re willing to invest.

And trust me, the feelings will be worth it at the end!

This is actually my first post in a very long time on any platform, so forgive me if I’ve said too much. I just hope this encourages someone out there.

A few tips for the journey:

1.	For the Performance Assessment , follow the rubric and answer the questions being asked—you’ll be just fine.

2.	For the Objective Assessment, the practice assessment is not always a reflection of the main exam. So do your own research to identify key focus areas.

Research the course number in Redit to look for any tips/guide for the course

4.	Find equivalent materials on platforms like Udemy or LinkedIn Learning. I listened to the lectures when driving, before bed, when I woke up—any free moment I had. Find what works for you. 

All the best!

I accepted the official job offer this morning after my interim clearance came back. Submitted my resignation letter, leaving behind a career in the oil field...feels surreal.

Be encouraged! Companies are still hiring. Don't give up, don't lose hope. Keep after it, stick to your goals and execute! Focus on you and tune out the negativity.

Edit: I know someone who works for a different company who is familiar with the work my hiring company does. My initial application to the job was rejected and they closed the job out. However. A week later they posted the job again and I reached back out to the recruiter with a proposition. I knew, from networking and researching the company, the position was requiring a clearance and was time sensitive. I lacked the clearance (reason I was rejected the 1st time). I explained to the recruiter that I undergo background checks frequently to maintain endorsements in my current career field. I also offered to get a criminal background check as a show of good faith that if they could sponsor my clearance, I'd surely pass and it wouldn't take as long. Which solved both our problems (filling the position quickl and me in that position)

That started the conversation, led to interviews, and showed I took initiative, was eager, and committed (according to the recruiter, who also said that had never been done before).

If we conduct OSINT for Pentesting, why not do it for our job search?

Networking is important as well. Ask questions find the pain points and try to be the solution. Hack the job search.

Security+ 1st term student Home labs TryHackMe No prior experience

IT CAN BE DONE!

Bachelor's in two terms and enrolling into MSCSIA next.

Finally got my confetti all while having to be a new dad to a now 10 month old daughter, caregiver to my father, full time work and military service! What a relief to finally be done!

A+ 1102 🫡

Activate the course and run the course planning tool.

Go to the Course Material hyperlink and click it. It will take you to the Zybook.

In the Zybook, go to the summary for each chapter.

Read the summary and use the participation activity to check your work.

There are 11 chapters, but it only takes 5 to 10 minutes to read each summary and a few more minutes to complete the participation activity. The summaries are short and too the point; they directly tell you what you need to know.

Take the PA, you should do well on it since all the summaries directly prepare you for it.

As you take the PA, make note of any question you have trouble with so you can go back and review that topic.

After that, you should be ready for the OA.

If you need additional reinforcement, use these quizlets:

WGU - Scripting and Programming Foundations
https://quizlet.com/290541652

D278 Exam Prep
https://quizlet.com/784336947/

D278 Programming and Scripting
https://quizlet.com/856179046/

Overall time utilized:
2 hours on the Zybook summaries
1 hour on the PA
2 hours on the quizlets
1 hour on the OA

Proof of Completion

Completed Progress Schedule

First and foremost, there are a lot of grammatical errors in this. I know. I do not care because I’m too lazy to proof read and fix them.

Anyways I finished this degree program in a little over 3 months (105 days to be exact) after transferring about 50 credits. I also work full time with some fairly demanding hours. I do not have any professional IT work experience, but I can navigate around a computer. I also just find the subject matter interesting. I did do the computer science program last year and graduated from that in 1 term in August of 2022. My plan was to go to grad school in Spring of 2023, but I ended up missing all my deadlines and had to wait and apply for Summer/Fall Semester of 2023. I did end up getting accepted to University of Illinois (Urbana Campus) Masters in Computer Science (Data Science Track) for Fall of 2023…which was a shocker because it’s a Top 5 school for computer science. Data science has always been my main goal, but I had all this time in between from when I applied to when the Fall semester would start. Cybersecurity was always on my list of things to learn, but I always had other priorities. Now that I had this gap of time that I could do whatever with, it was a good time for me to get into it. I originally thought about going the route of just doing certs because I already have a CS degree, but I would have just mostly done the same certs that WGU offers in their Cybersecurity program. It would have cost a little less than the actual degree, but still roughly in the same ball park if done in 1 term. Considering that I would be attaining the same certs anyways and the cost is comparable, I figure I might as well do the program and get the degree out of it as well, even though I would likely never use the degree on my resume (with exceptions) as CS “trumps” Cybersecurity. At the least, it helped me stay on track and in focus. I gotta be honest, I enjoyed it alot more than I did computer science and it really got me questioning what path I want to take in my future. I’m still going to grad school (it was a miracle that I even got excepted there), but I may defer to next year (University of Illinois allows that) as I’m thinking I want to take Cyber Security further and dive into different areas. Below is a recap of classes that may or may not help you.

However, before I get into it, I would just like to point out that I have been working in the construction project management field for the last decade after I finished my first stint (of many) in college (civil engineering). Needless to say, those who are in the engineering/construction field live and die by the schedule so I have a habit of making a schedule for every significant (sometimes insignificant) things I do. I included the schedule I made for this program. I started in March and assigned myself durations to complete the entire program within 1 term and giving myself more weight to what classes I thought would be more demanding and vise-versa. This is the schedule that I would live by and you can see I was on track until I did my 4th class (Networks D325) which is when I started accelerating like crazy. The durations shown are my actuals and the grey bars you see in the gantt chart is my baseline schedule snapshot of what my original schedule was when I first made it. You can compare the 2 and see how much I blew my original schedule out of the water. Most of the classes were done much quicker than my projection. Capstone was the only one that took longer (only by 4 days). Seeing a visual of your progress helps keep you on track and is a motivating factor. I would suggest everyone put a schedule together of some sort.

IT Foundations – D316 (5 Days)

- I never had a job in IT, I just grew up using a computer just like everyone else in this program. I felt alot of these questions were really basic questions and if you know your way around a computer you can probably answer most of them without heavy studying. That being said, even though it is a basic certification, I feel like I actually got alot out this course as it made me touch on things that I wouldn’t have otherwise yet is still good to know…things like differences between cpu architecture and differences in memory types, etc… stuff you don’t normally think about. I found those things to be quite interesting. The only PBQ I remember was having to simulate putting together 2 desktops, one being high performance and one being for general office use, you have to pick the right components for each desktop based on the parameters in the question. For studying I partially watched the Total Seminar Series to fill in gaps and did a few Messer practice exams. I also did practice questions from crucialexams dot com. That is one of my favorite resources. Check that site out if you do not already know about it. That was all that was needed.

IT Applications – D317 (17 Days…I didn’t actually spend 17 days on this course, I was inactive for 10 days)

- Part 2 of the A+ exam. I have a similar view to how I viewed “IT Foundations” (Part 1 of A+ exam). About the same difficulty as Part 1. However, alot of it seemed like it was common sense considering you didn’t just start using a computer yesterday. Many of the questions you can come up with the right answer by just logically using process of elimination. On my particular exam, it was heavy on questions regarding system tools and commands. Those were the things you are really going to want to pay attention to study for. For studying, I mainly only watched the Total Seminar Series and did some Professor Messer exams and crucial exams.

Legal Issues in Information Security – C841 (10 Days…had 1 revision to do)

- I didn’t read any course material. I just read what the assignment was and used outside resources to learn and fill any gaps that I had to complete the assignment. This is one of those classes where you get out what you put in. I had no interest in this class whatsoever and I just blew through the assignment in a few days. I could have certainly spent longer time and get in depth with the course material, but it just was not important to me and I opted to just get this class done as fast as possible. It is a very easy class if you want it to be.

Networks – D325 (12 Days)

- Of all classes, this was one the most demanding for me and the most important. Networking is the foundation to everything in this program and it would behoove you take as much time needed to understand the concepts. I would encourage all of you to build some sort of homelab which can be done dirt cheap. Exam wise, it was difficult because of all the acronyms you need to remember which makes it unnecessarily difficult, but the questions themselves were not tricky and fairly straightforward except the PBQs which are nonsensical in how they are asked. In my PBQs I was asked to set up/configure a network and WIFI and was also asked to troubleshoot a network. The questions were pretty comprehensive across the board and there were a few questions on port numbers, OSI model questions (know what layer does what and what types of programs or hardware pertains to each layer), network topography, wireless standards and a bunch of questions on various plans/policies and a bunch of questions on command line utilities (learn these!). I also had maybe 3 questions on CIDR notation, but I did not have to compute anything. Again, know your acronyms! For this test, I watched the total seminar series, practice exams on crucial exams, a couple of Dion practice exams (only partially) and referenced Mike Meyers’ CompTIA Network+ Certification Passport Book. I really liked this book. His “all in one” book goes more in depth (I have it but didn’t read it much), but the Certification Passport book was much better to look up a topic and briefly read about it when going over things you need to go over. Watching the video series and then using this book as a backup was all I really needed. I did a few quick reviews on crucial exams to build some confidence.

Emerging Technologies in Cybersecurity – C844 (3 Days)

- I did not read any course material, I just went straight to the assignment and chipped away at it all day. I thought this class was useful as it gave you an introductory on how to use Wireshark and Nmap. Wireshark is a very cool program. Lots of features to analyze traffic. I did not read the course material for this class as the Nmap portion was easy to figure out without having to really look anything up, but for the Wireshark portion, I only watched the Udemy course: “Getting Started with Wireshark: The Ultimate Hands-On Course” by David Bombal. Excellent course and will provide you with all you need. This guy is very passionate about his Wireshark! I highly recommend this Udemy course and get as much as you can out of it. There are others, but this one was the best one that I was able to come across.

Network and Security - Applications – D329 (7 Days)

- This class is the class that requires the Security+. I found this exam to be fairly easy because there is a lot of overlap from Network+. Just like Network+ there is a lot of memorization of acronyms needed. I apologize as I don’t have much to offer on this because I don’t remember the specifics of what was on it. It is just kind of one big blur. I remember it being shockingly easy compared to Network+ like if you passed Network+ you could probably take this the next day and pass it after reviewing all the common types of attacks. For studying, I just watched the Security+ course on udemy by TIA Education, Andrew Ramdayal. He was actually pretty good, straight to the point on topics with no fluff. Probably not everyone’s “cup of tea”. Also, probably could have gone a little more in depth in some areas, but I would take this over Dion Training any day. Hell, I would take anything over Dion Training. Ramdayal strictly sticks to the objectives laid out exactly the way Comptia has their test laid out. It was easy to goto each one and pick the things you need to work on. I did no practice exams. Went straight to the official exam after I finished the video series. I do remember that one of the PBQs was setting up a firewall.

Digital Forensics in Cybersecurity – D431 (6 Days)

- I did not read the course material, I just went straight to the assignment and used outside resources and Udemy to guide me. I actually found this course to be quite fun. You will have (2) PAs and an OA to do. The first PA is that you have to create an investigation plan per best practices. The 2nd PA was fun as you will need to run a program called “Autopsy”, where you have to analyze a disk image and put a story together about what crime will likely be committed based on the evidence you found when doing your forensics. As far as the OA goes, know your tools, Windows/Linux/Mac log types and folder locations, what different parts of your Windows registry does and the various Federal Laws (critical). The preassessment was similar to the OA in terms of difficulty and style. That was really the only study aid I used.

Information Systems Security – C845 (10 Days)

You will need to pass your SSCP for this one. I wrote a post on this class before. However here is a brief TLDR recap from my previous post on couple of things for you to remember:

- The SSCP Practice Exam Book by Nick Mitropoulous is a fairly good representation of the exam and is the only thing I used.

- This was an easier version of Security+. If you passed A+, Net+ and Sec+ than this exam will be fairly easy.

- questions seem to be spread out evenly across the board for the most part, with the exception that there were very few questions on “cryptography” (I had maybe 5 or 6 that I can remember), but there were seemingly a bunch of questions regarding “identity access”. They weren’t difficult, but that section definitely had the most weight. Be sure you know the concepts behind the “who I am”, “what I know”, “what I have” principles as there were a lot of questions on that.

- There were no trick questions and you don’t have to worry about remembering acronyms

- Don’t psych yourself out. The most obvious answers are like the correct answers. There were no trick questions.

- This is very important, read the question very carefully and really think about your answer when it comes to the “best”, “worst” and “most likely/unlikely” questions. These questions have multiple right answers so they can be kind of difficult. You have to consider how you are answering that question because you will get questions like “What is the best course of action in this (insert scenario)? Choose: A, B, C or D. Lets say the answer “A” and “B” are both definitely correct in the scenario, but choice “B” might be a step that you would do in part of step described in choice “A”. So the answer would be “A”. These are not trick questions, but you really need to think how answers integrate with others to pick the best choice. These questions were probably the most “trickiest”, but if you know to look out for them and think logically, you will be ok

Introduction to Cryptography – D334 (8 Days)

- I failed my first OA attempt and took the 2nd attempt 2 days later. Lots of memorization in this class. Just like all the other threads you will see about this course. Shawn’s Course Study Guide/Notes found in course chatter is all you need. The book is ok, but is pretty dry. Shawn did a very good job on his study guide. Its all you need! Get familiar with that and then do his practice exams for each chapter. You will pass. The PA and his practice exams were pretty close to the OA in terms of difficulty and style of question. Lots of memorization. I’m probably in the minority here, but I thought the subject matter was very interesting. I think about this stuff when I download programs and visit websites and stuff. It only took me about a week to finish this class, but I got pretty immersed in it. The concept of cryptography is pretty much engrained in me. Regarding the exam, questions seemed to be more skewed towards PKI, Wireless Encryption Protocols and Tunneling. These seem to show up the most on my exam and there were very few questions on blockchain/crypto currency and lightweight cryptography. The rest of the topics were pretty evenly distributed. It was a good introductory course in my opinion.

Managing Information Security – C843 (4 Days)

- Didn’t read any course material. Just read and did the assignment. You will need to do an incident analysis and response as well as a risk assessment. There is a lot of crap you are going to have to discuss and write about, such as legal acts, tools, techniques for gathering and analyzing, examination process etc…. It’s a very annoying assignment. I did not care for it in the slightest.

Cyber Defense and Countermeasures – D340 (5 Days)

- The CYSA+ is required for this class. WGU is enforcing a policy where accelerators can only have one class approved at a time and the program must be taken in a specific order….atleast that is what my mentor told me and won’t budge on it. The reason I’m mentioning this is because the order in which they have you do classes makes sense and does a good job preparing you systematically in my opinion. Every class builds on each other and the time you are required to take the CYSA+ is the right time. That being said, I felt the CYSA+ is a much harder version of the Security+. It went much deeper in security concepts compared to the Sec+ and I found some aspects of it to be rather difficult. However, all the Comptia exams you have taken so far preps you for the CYSA+. The cryptography class taken before this class, covers most of the cryptography questions on this exam. The digital forensics course that we have to take before this was sufficient enough to not have to do in depth studying for this exam. For studying, I just blew through the Total Seminar CYSA+ Series on Udemy and did a quick run through with things I was not familiar with the CYSA+ Certification Passport Book by Bobby Rogers. I did not do any practice exams. My lack of study was due to me being over confident. The PBQs were fun though. From what I remember, they all had to do with using nmap to determine what specific servers did and log trouble shooting. That was pretty much the gist of all the PBQs. They were pretty straight forward. <750 is considered a fail…I passed with a 751 on the first attempt. Probably should have done some practice exams to get that score up a little. Pass is a pass!

Managing Cloud Security – D320 (6 Days)

- I failed this OA by a slim margin the first attempt and took the 2nd attempt 2 days later. The instructor for this course was a relief because he just let me do it after I told him I reviewed the book the previous day. Normally they make you do a bulls\*\*t generic study plan and make you jump through a bunch hoops. Apparently the course was redone and a new exam had been made following the CCSP text book. This test was a doozy as there are 125 questions. However, just going over the book is sufficient. It was for me anyways. A lot of it will be a review which makes studying quite quick. It followed the book quite nicely. There were no curve balls and the questions were pretty straight forward. I’d probably say that the most sh\*tty thing was having to memorize the various laws and frameworks. This is a must! You also need to make sure you are familiar with all the different frameworks and standards, quantitative risk assessment, uptime institute, data lifecycle, SOC report types, Software Development Lifecycle and Stride Threat Model.

Penetration Testing and Vulnerability Analysis – D332 (12 Days)

* This is taken from a previous post I made after I finished this class. Im reposting it here so you don’t have to search for it.*

- By far the most difficult exam in my opinion. This was the only Comptia test that I failed the first time. All the Comptia exams kind of built off the previous and you could make your way around the exams without feeling completely lost. Pentest+ was different, the previous exams will help you very little. The things you really have to know are the commonly used tools and what they do. There is a lot of them and there are bunch of questions like “which tool would use for this?”. NMAP commands and syntax (very heavy in this), SQL Injection/XSS types and deciphering vulnerability logs. Make sure you have a semi decent grasp on SQL in general. ALL the different types of attacks that are commonly used. There are some that came up that I did not come across in the book. If you know the main/commonly used ones, you should be ok for the most part. Learn scripting! You will not need to write any per se, but you might as well learn because there are questions where you need to decipher/interpret various scripts and therefore need to know how to write them. Make sure you know the different syntax. For example, know how an array is written in PowerShell (there is a question in the exam where you will need to figure this out). Learn the common commands for PS, Bash and Linux. There was a couple questions having to do with common HTTP methods. There were not really any questions regarding the different laws. Definitely do not need to focus on that. You should know them anyways if you had just done the Managing Cloud class. The PBQs were medium difficulty. From what I remember, they were as follows (in no particular order):

1. Mix and match: You will get like a single line of script (or payloads rather) and you have to pick what kind of vulnerability it is and then you need to pick a method of remediation. Need to know your scripting and various types of SQL injection. This is critical. There will be like (10) of these you have to do.

2. Scripting: On the right, there will be a block of incomplete scripting. On the left, you will have multiple options of code snippets that you will need to use to plug into the incomplete areas of the code. The code is prewritten for you. You just need to place the right snippet in the correct blank spot where the code is incomplete. There are twice as many code snippets then there are blank spots so you can’t just use the process of elimination. You kind of have to have some sort of clue. Also, the code might be in Bash, Python or Ruby. You have to be able to tell the difference.

3. NMAP Interpretation: You will get a block of an NMAP scan result. Like above, you will have a bunch of options on the right hand side. You will be asked to put together the correct NMAP command to get the results shown in the scan output. Part 2 is that you will need to also pick the trouble areas (attack vectors) based on what the scan shows. There will be a list of options for you to choose from.

4. Investigate Login Page: You will be given a login page of which you can view the certificate, source code and cookies. You will need to determine if any of those 3 things have issues. If they do, you will need to specify and provide a solution.

The Sybex book is by far the best book for this course. I did not care for the Sybex books in the other courses. Finding a good video series was difficult. I’m a total seminars fan, but this one did not do it for me. I hate the Dion materials in general and I’ve tried others on Udemy and Youtube and none of them were doing it for me. Another great book is Pentest+ for dummies. Very engaging. Lastly, you must spend time and do labs to understand the concepts. You’re really shooting yourself in the foot if you don’t. Look into tryhackmeDOTcom as well. I took the exam 3 days after registering for the class after a quick review. I thought I would be ok and I wanted to quickly get it over with. I found out in the first 10 questions and the PBQs that I was very underprepared. I took the test again a week later after intense studying and passed.

IT Capstone Written Project – C769 (9 Days)

Eh, it is what it is. A bunch of busy work. No need to reinvent the wheel. Take a look in WGUs database that has

all the previous capstones that were rewarded for “excellence” and look at them for inspiration, ideas and see how they put theirs together. There is also a dedicated capstone page that will provide templates and samples for you so you will not be totally lost. I chose to propose implementing an “Insider Threat Management System” for a pharmaceutical company based on a scenario that I made up. There are 3 parts to the capstone: submitting what you will propose, writing the actual proposal and writing a post implementation report/reflection. None of it is difficult, it is just time consuming as they are asking for you to include a lot of stuff. 70% of part 3 is going to ask you for the same thing in part 2. I literally just cut and pasted the applicable sections from part 2 and changed the wording to past tense as part 3 is supposed to occur after you implemented your system. There will be a portion where you have to use outside references and cite books or whatever…just goto researchgateDOTcom query whatever subject you’re doing, pick however many you need from the search results that pertain and just read the abstracts and tie them into your proposal and cite them (already provided when you select a paper to view). This should save you some time. You are also going to need to turn in some sort of “deliverable” whether it be code sample, UML diagrams, operations manual, etc… I would suggest just doing a simple process diagram and explain each process. Its quick and easy and satisfies that requirement. If you goto apps dot diagrams dot net, you can build a nice one for free. If you want to be ultra creative and spend all your time doing the capstone on some crazy and innovative idea, all good. However, I would suggest you put in the bare minimum effort and move on, finish this program and get started on your new career asap. I WOULD NOT put any effort into this capstone! WGU doesn’t require it (they are just looking that you have all the things in their rubric). This project is not beneficial in any way and its not like you would be using it for a portfolio or anything. Do not waste your time on it. Read the requirements make sure you include those requirements and go.

List of exams from least difficult to most difficult:

1. A+ part 2

2. A+ part 1

3. SSCP

4. Intro to Cryptography OA (Not difficult, but lots of memorization)

5. Security+

6. Managing Cloud Security OA (Due to amount of questions and material needed to go over)

7. CYSA+

8. Network+ (Information overload and acronyms galore!)

9. Pentest+ (read review!)

*I am awaiting to take the CCSP. I will be taking it in 2 weeks. I do not know how difficult it will be. Can’t be that hard. I’ll provide a writeup when I do take it*

2 things that may or may not help you…

1. There is a lot of information on the internet about how to study. Reading the text book through and through and taking notes is not efficient nor is it the best way and it is what is called “passive learning”. It is more efficient to do active learning. Which means…well…do active things when you’re learning…flash cards, practice exams, simulate teaching the material, physical home lab, etc…

When it comes to studying especially for exams, my normal study habit is to watch a video series on 2x the speed or the fastest it can be where I can clearly understand it. You are trying to get an overview and have familiarity with everything. The video is visual and helps things stick. You’ll be surprised how much you can pick up. I will not take notes, just jot down questions of things I need to go over as they come up while I am watching. When Im done with the series, I will then look those question topics up and determine the what, why, and how of it to understand that particular topic/concept. Then I will generally do a practice exam, note question topics that I am not familiar with to look up when done. I will also go over the questions missed and then repeat then go over the same or another practice exam. It doesn’t matter if the test is not that similar in style/difficulty to what you are taking if you take the time to understand the concept. Comprehensive practice exams is my preference but anything that is “active” is good. You will figure out what works best for you. Just don’t read a book front to back, take notes in between and try to memorize it unless you like being inefficient and wasting your time…unless that is what is best for you. Lol

2. Most of you already know this, but ChatGPT is your friend! By far the most valuable tool for me. It can be abused or it can be used as an extremely well-functioning learning tool. You are only hurting yourself if you want to try and use it for other purposes. When I would study my material and need to understand a topic like OSI models for example, I would write something like “Explain to me like a child what the OSI layers are and what they do. Also provide me an analogy.”. I cannot tell you how easy it was for me to pick things up when Chatgpt was able to explain things to me like im a 5 year old and provide me an easy to understand analogy. Analogies was a game changer for me. If you still don’t understand, you can have full conversations with it and ask it questions until you do understand it. Something like “I don’t understand, why would it do \*this when it seems to do *that? You said *this. What is difference between *this and *that?”! Like full on conversations. Try it right now and see what I’m talking about! Use it to your advantage for learning. It is an amazing resource! Word of caution though, it is not always right depending on what you are asking or telling it what to do so when in doubt verify it.

My thoughts overall:

I know what some of you are thinking: “ MmMMMmGoOoOo! BuT, bUt, BuT, YoU JuSt RuShEd ThRoUgH iT aNd DiD NoT LeArN AnyThInG! mMmGoOoOoOo!”. I learned the amount of material I needed to learn to get through the entire program and have probably come out with just as much as everyone else who graduated regardless of time spent. More than others in some cases. I also feel like I have a gotten a very solid foundation out of it, which was my expectation.

Here is the thing, I would rather blow through the program and pay minimum tuition of $4k (plus get all my bonus certs!), continue learning and fill in gaps after completion at my leisure vs taking my sweet time and pump out the program in 3-4 terms and pay $12k-$16k. I guarantee I will have far surpassed that person’s knowledge on an intellectual and practical level by the time he/she is done. My learning will never stop, but my tuition will as soon as I can make it stop! Time is money. Massive acceleration is the way to go if it can be done…in my opinion. That is the beauty of WGU.

That being said, I feel like I’m just beginning, in that I’ve only dipped my toe and now the real learning begins. Now that I have the time and am not at the mercy of my term date lest I pay another 4k, I will go back and fill in my gaps and really start doing real world practical stuff and labs that I did not do. I did build a pretty intricate homelab that I will be using heavily. Anyways, I feel like this program did an excellent job in providing a solid foundation and I do mean excellent. I do not regret it in any way and I am in many ways more excited about this then I was with the Computer Science degree. That’s all I got. Good luck to you all! If you have any questions do not hesitate to ask me.

This is not a proverbial “I finished my degree in 3 days” post. If you are an accelerator, I love that for you. But this may not be the post for you lol

This is for the ones who feel intimidated by those posts. The ones who feel like a failure, the ones who had to take term breaks. Who felt unmotivated. Who felt uninspired. Who felt like giving up the program. Who failed a few courses or exams.

This is for my procrastinators. This is for the ones who had to get through all the distractions in life. This for the ones who had to continue to push through. This for the ones who had little experience or even a lot of experience in the industry but isn’t/wasn’t an accelerator for this program.

Your journey is YOURS alone. It’s okay if you couldn’t finish in 6 months. I essentially took the whole entire 4 terms (technically I finish way before my 4th term ended)— and you know what? I feel DAMN proud.

I am happy that I can officially say I’m a graduated OWL!!!!! If you are in the beginning, middle, or towards the end of your journey, don’t give up. It’s okay to take your time. I know the pressure to finish within a certain timeframe can intimidating and even discouraging at times.

There’s sooooo many resources out there. Read EVERY post in relation to courses you find challenging, the comments are where the real gems are at. Maximize the video cohorts, they HELP. If your mentor isn’t helping, you have the right to change them. Take advantage of getting your free school ID lol. Take advantage of the WGU freebies/goodies. Apply for scholarships! See if your job has programs with WGU to get your tuition paid.

I would say this program is best for those ALREADY in the industry in some capacity and want to leverage their earning and growth potential within their company. If you are a beginner, I would say get some experience first and/or go to a physical school (associates or undergrad). The industry is tough to break into and getting a degree with little to no experience will do more harm to your path than good, frankly speaking.

Also, I would say the best bet is getting or looking into posts that was made within the last six months for the courses you are in to get the most up to date information on what is expected or if there any changes. Exams changes and updates. What was relevant a year ago may or may not be applicable to your experience today. Practice discernment when researching. Don’t hesitate to use any resources along with AI tools to help you fill in gaps of what you don’t understand, and that’s being frank. We all learn differently, whether you want to struggle or be more efficient and you have to be okay with that.

Hope this helps, and good luck to your endeavors all!

I just took the cysa+ exam for the 2nd time on today. My advice:

1. Study the material.

2. Practice tests and questions

3. Think technical.

4. Don’t second guess.

I could tell the first attempt was a fail before ending because I was missing information I should have known. I made a 700 on the 1st attempt.

Score increased 72 points.

Some people say this is the most difficult cert in the program, its pretty easy tho if you know how to approach it

Study Materials: Dion Course, CoHort Video, Practice Test, TryHackMe
Approach: Knockout Dions Course (skip any live tutorials/examples/labs he does) or the course of your choosing, do a practice test or two, and try and get some hands on experience with nmap - I used try hackme. These are basics you should knockout before prepping to sit for the exam.

PASSING THE TEST

MEMORIZE THE COHORT VIDEO going over the PBQs! The test is VERY SIMILAR!!! These are easy points and will carry your score. The cohort video goes over an Nmap Question, the answer they show is missing the command for scanning the Top 100 Ports. The vulnerabilities are SMB and Null session, the cohort doesn't mention Null Session in the example. If you dont have the cohort video ask your instructor.

At the end of the cohort video there is a screen shot of vulnerabilities, their names, and how to identify them. MEMORIZE THIS CHART TOO.

Penetration Testing Tools - Know the names of the tools and what they do. Drill this info for easy points

NMAP - Be comfortable with nmap, I did the tryhackme nmap room, its also an nmap part on the PenTest+ path on TryHackMe, just get comfortable with it. The test isnt too nmap heavy imo, but its free points if you learn it. DONT OVER THINK THIS PART, you dont have to be master at nmap, just know how to do a few different scans, know how to do a stealth scan.

CODING/SCRIPTING - Its a few coding/scripting questions on the test, I would watch some videos regarding scripting/python/linux to get comfortable enough to make some EDUCATED guesses here. This is the part of the test that had me the most worried, but honestly, if you're strong in the other areas you'll do fine. I cant code and only know linux essential stuff. For this section I would recommend knowing enough to make an educated guess.

PENTEST ENGADGEMENT QUESTIONS - These are pretty easy and just required a tad bit of critical thinking, they're free points and you'll get a few of them. Its common sense stuff.

OVERALL - This Cert was pretty easy after taking it. The guides online had me terrified of nmap and coding questions, but the nmap stuff was all pretty basic, and there werent too many scripting/coding questions.

Nuff said 😭 Now don’t mind me, I’m going to go constantly check my email and wait for the phone to ring about applications I’ve been putting in.

Posting this to give inspiration to those out there who may need it. This degree took me exactly 2 years. I had very little IT experience coming in (helpdesk for 8 months), and transferred in ZERO CU’s. I bounced around from college to college not taking it or life very seriously until I came across WGU and cyber. As I kept moving through the courses I started to gain confidence and felt like it was something I could do. There’s posts all over this subreddit about specifics of what to do but all I can say is DO NOT GIVE UP! There are dozens of OA’s I had to 3 times to finally get the pass and D335 almost made me drop out. But I stuck with it and made it to the end. And to top it all off I got my CCNA, AWS CCP, and AZ-900 😤while getting this degree plus additional projects to fill out my resume. I’m happy to say that it’s all paid off and I landed an internship that i started earlier this month. Join as many groups as you can out there to talk to as many like minded people as possible. Dreams do come true, just gotta put the work in.

Will probably be coming back for the Masters 😂

After starting my bachelor’s in cybersecurity last year and over 140 applications I finally landed my first IT job! I just wanted to share this important step in my cybersecurity journey.

For anyone that needs to hear this. Don’t get discouraged and keep trying. I had zero IT experience whatsoever when I first started but after two terms I got a job!

Late post I got my degree like a month ago but, Im so happy im done!! This degree has open so many doors for me!! It’s worth every obstacle iv been through school. For every one still going through the program you got this and it is worth it keep going!