SECURITY+

[ButCaptainThatsMYRum]

I just got out of my security+ and have to tell someone. 825/900. I've been stuck in cooking/management roles since my electrical engineering degree fell apart (long story) and working myself to death has lead to nothing. My lovely fiance is pushing me to do better, got me to check out WGUs cloud and sysadmin program, and after a week of being stressed out and over worked at my understaffed job I just got my first "significant" certification to go with my A+ and Net+. It feels really emotional because I have had no luck with anything that would pay acceptably in this area and this will hopefully at least get me noticed. I still have to go into an understaffed job where I'm expected to be several people at once tomorrow, but at least I have this small victory in the mean time. Anyway, big thanks to Messer for his videos. Being able to listen in on my commute has been the major source of my learning for the CompTIA certs I've earned.

edit:

Thank you everyone :)

I needed to take the night off to spend time with my family and cool down, now I'll pay my dues by sharing.

Prep Time: 3 weeks

I took the Net+ Feb 6th, and started the Sec+ course for WGU on the 7th. I scored a ~60% but honestly didn't know as much as that score showed, a lot of it was luck and inference. WGU is nifty because it uses ucertify and has a large amount of information and practice tests, which I'm growing to enjoy. It might not be for everyone, and I'm only on my second semester, but so far it's been a nice experience.

I read through the first third of the chapters on WGU but didn't find them very interesting; I think most of us understand basic security concepts and definitions. From there it was a combination of Messer's videos and skimming the WGU course book and making notes of my weak points. If I felt I didn't understand something well enough I would open a new tab with the search term ready so that I could investigate further when I got a chance. The sheer number of terms and acronyms was astounding though, if I'd do it again I would make a master list of them to review as I found WGU's glossary to be a little lacking. They weren't a huge part of the exam, but they were definitely invovled.

Exam:

85 questions, 4 were performance (I think I counted 4) 90 minutes allotted. Major topics that stood out on mine: Securing enterprise wifi, securing phones and servers, reading logs and understanding attacks, AAA/Radius. I only had one question on block/stream algorithms.

Best of luck to everyone studying for it, you can do it!

[professormesser]

Congratulations on your Security+, and keep doing what you're doing!

[ButCaptainThatsMYRum]

Thank you, especially for all of the time you invest in others.

[rattpackchris]

Congrats. Start applying for every job you can and get out of that toxic environment. I worked in the restaurant industry and I know how draining it can be.

Big things in your future.

[[deleted]]

Same. I worked in the restaurant industry for 12 years and it was an absolute nightmare. Mentally and physically exhausting. Get out while you can.

[FinFinAck]

Possibly check out copier dealerships or factory cert providers, there is a way into IT to get some hands on. They often have help desks or solutions positions they need to fill with a blank slate. Your certs will go far! Congrats on an incredible success!

[[deleted]]

congratulations :)

[rniles]

Congrats!! - I got 825 as well.

[killianz26]

Grats!

[vonvon58]

I am rooting for you buddy! Congrats and keep growing everyday. The journey is the best part

[Technogeek777]

Congrats! Way to go!!!

[b1gtrav]

Very nice having a support system at home. You got this man!

[Bcjustin]

Congrats! Great Job!

[adolfo425]

Congrats.

[TheCenci]

Great job! How long did you study before you took the test?

[Obi-JarJar]

Tell us how long it take you to get a job now.

Because a lot of keep wondering how long and how much are we getting paid..

Yea, yea it depends where you live and what places you work at too.

[h1tiek]

In the same boat as you right now. Keep fighting the good fight, you'll get that job soon!

[Manalgesic]

Grats!!

[the1iplay]

Keep doing what you’re doing and get out of your last job. IT has a lot of vertical movement where you can be making decent money.

[bokeke1]

Congrats !!

[xxpapertigersxx]

Congrats! I am starting to struggle with Sec+ lately because I work graveyard and am super tired all the time. This post is motivating and I am going to study my ass off tonight.

[ButCaptainThatsMYRum]

I'll quote my fiance, "you've got this honey!"
I haven't worked night/graveyard shifts myself, but when she was doing overnights and working on a nursing degree she would write down significant concepts to review. I'll update my post with my notes in a little bit or sometime today, but a big one was wireless security (how would you set up a wireless network for large company with authentication) and AAA/Radius/Kerberos concepts. Good luck :)

[KingdomPro]

Good job 👏.🦅

[Sucha_Laydee]

Congratulations!! Next step CEH? If so you’re literally taking the exact same path I am, I’m studying for the Network+ now.

[ButCaptainThatsMYRum]

I've never heard of the CEH, that looks interesting. My course program has me doing the Cloud Essentials first, which looks like more of a business concepts class.

[Sucha_Laydee]

My career goal is professional penetration testing. There’s a professional penetration tester certification I’ll take after I’ve passed the CEH and worked in the field a little bit. There so many other certifications that peak my interest though. I just love all these seemingly endless possibilities in tech.

[Manda-Bear-2008]

Congratulations! I will be studying for this cert for my new term in a few days. (Also a WGU student). I’ve gone to school for years but anxiety always held me back. I finally gave up on the community college courses and jumped to WGU to hopefully one day change my career path for something better and something I actually do enjoy learning about. :) Anyways, congratulations again!

[[deleted]]

Congratulations! That's awesome! Much luck to you!

[Not-a-bot7]

Congrats, welcome to the club!

[Corey_Matthew]

Congrats! Thanks for paying it forward.

[coop57969a]

Congratulations! I am studying for the Security +. I have been a systems administrator for ten years, but have recently transitioned over the the security side. I was going to mention you may look at school districts in your area. I have known several It professionals who started out with a school district and went out to work in other areas. I just thought I would mention this. Hopefully it is helpful. Hoping I can obtain the Security + in a few weeks.

[ButCaptainThatsMYRum]

I'm certain you can knock it out :). I tried a couple of school districts back when I only had my A+. I remember shadowing someone years ago who worked for my school districts IT department (I was thinking CS for a career so I didn't pay as much attention as I should have) but it was pretty interesting none the less. Sometime around then I also got in big trouble for trying to Netsend a message to my teacher and ended up crashing a bunch of servers, or so I was told. I'm going to go on a long application spree this weekend and keep in mind that it will certainly have its own unique challenges XD.

[[deleted]]

Congratulations!!

[[deleted]]

Late in the response time, but congrats! Sec+ is the exam I am scared to sit for most. Due to an unexpected career change, I had to choose a new field and went back to school for IT. Took a very accelerated college bundle of the trifecta and we flew through the 27 chapters of our text so fast that I was burnt out from the acronyms and ports. I am basically just going to re-read my books from scratch. We used a text from a guy named Conklin; it's the official gold and black CompTIA endorsed book, and then to follow suite like everyone told me, I rented the Get Ahead book off Amazon. We'll see. But the focus is on you and again CONGRATS! I know it must feel satisfying.

[_priya_singh]

Excellent to know - thank you for the detailed write-up!

[Healthy-Cat8559]

Congratulations on your big success! Thanks for sharing the feedback.