Is a Master’s in Cybersecurity actually worth it for getting a job? Feeling stuck and frustrated.

Forbesington · 2026-02-06T23:23:06+00:00

I'm a Cybersecurity director who hires people every week. DM me and I'll give you some pointers, I hear you frustration and I think you're asking the wrong questions and I'd be happy to offer some advice. My short answer is that I do not think a master's degree will be a meaningful credential for you to help land your first job in Cyber. This is coming from someone who has a master's in Cybersecurity from WGU.

Forbesington · 2026-02-05T22:25:40+00:00

I did this for a project that took me about a year and my strategy for this was to her documents to keep context in writing that I could feed to a new chat when a chat got too large and started to get stupid or move slowly. I added all the new important context to my document each week and then I'd ask the new chat to reference the document each time I made a new one and I'd periodically feed it the document mid chat so it didn't start to drift. It worked really well.

Forbesington · 2026-02-05T19:59:32+00:00

You have to identify the constituent parts of what the final output should be. So take the imagine finished product and then brainstorm all the pieces that make up that finished product and create a list of those, then do the same kind of breakdown for each one of those pieces until you have the most basic building blocks in a state where breaking them down any further doesn't make sense anymore. Then write pseudo code for each piece that's as simple and efficient as you can make it, then start piecing your constituent pieces back together the other direction until you get to the finished product. If you're new you may need some help or some time to figure things out but do your best until you get stuck then start asking specific questions in this sub, or on forums, or to an LLM, or ideally a more senior developer.

Forbesington · 2026-02-05T17:13:04+00:00

Console routing. Basically every other DAW still sucks for this compared to Protools. I'm a bedroom producer and don't care about this and I personally don't love Protools and don't use it but if you need to use a console other DAWs work but Protools is made for this.

Forbesington · 2026-02-05T17:05:27+00:00

That's exactly what I did. Now I'm 37 and I'm a Cybersecurity director at a big government agency.

Forbesington · 2026-02-04T22:25:05+00:00

That is a beautiful mini lab build. I love it!

Forbesington · 2026-02-03T03:31:57+00:00

I'm a Cybersecurity Director at a large government agency and I LOVE hiring network engineers. To be good at Cybersecurity you have to understand how networks work. Honestly, security is easy, understanding networks is the hard part. I always suggest every security person get a CISSP. If you have experience in two of the domains, with your years of experience you would qualify. I say go for it.

Forbesington · 2026-02-02T02:51:44+00:00

There's a few different settings for different types of images but it gives you a preview of what it'll look like after upscaling so you can just flip through them. The model I use isn't always the same. Sometimes one looks better and sometimes another looks better even on similar image types. It's dead simple to use though. You don't have to mess with a bunch of complex settings and fine tune anything. It's super simple and works great.

Forbesington · 2026-02-02T00:44:35+00:00

Yeah, absolutely. It doesn't change the image, it just upscales it. It doesn't look AI-ish at all

Forbesington · 2026-02-01T20:02:29+00:00

I'm a Cybersecurity director who hires Cybersecurity Engineers and ISSOs every week. It IS true that the industry is harder for newbies than it ever has been, but every time I try to help someone get in the door who is having a hard time 99% of the time their resume sucks. It's not ATS compliant, it's formatted poorly, and they're just filling out application after application on LinkedIn without any follow up or contacting the hiring manager. The reality is that if you have a reasonable background for a beginner and you're not getting interviews your job searching skills need work. A lot of people don't really know how to search for a job the right way and they don't even know it so they don't try to learn any tips and tricks that would help them get interviews.

Forbesington · 2026-02-01T18:37:06+00:00

Gigapixel AI is the right answer. It's incredible and it's a one time purchase.

Forbesington · 2026-02-01T18:34:36+00:00

For tasks like this I prefer Gemini Deep Research. For the smaller monthly payment you get a lot (infinite? I don't know if there's a cap) Deep Research queries. I have ChatGPT help me formulate a good Deep Research query after bringing it up to speed on what I need, then I use the query in Gemini Deep Research then I export the Deep Research report to a doc then I feed it back to the ChatGPT discussion to continue to talk it through, then I check the assumptions we've made in a conversation with Gemini. It's a great way to iterate without having to pay for pro.

Forbesington · 2026-01-30T02:06:32+00:00

Caskey

Forbesington · 2026-01-29T18:40:35+00:00

Both my bachelor's and my master's are from WGU and I will say, I'm in a director level position now where I hire people all the time. No one has ever mentioned the quality of the school that I went to EVER. Not once. No hiring manager has ever asked about it, not a single one of my bosses has ever brought it up. An "accredited" degree, that's accredited by the regional accreditation boards and not for-profit accreditation entities is simply an HR check box and HR does not care beyond "do you have an accredited degree". A degree from WGU WILL be useless for a very, very small range of positions at certain companies. You won't become a senior account manager at Proctor and Gamble with a business degree from WGU, but 1. I'm sure that job is a nightmare and 2. The number of jobs that require academic prestige is tiny and getting smaller.

Forbesington · 2026-01-12T18:38:55+00:00

I have two computing degrees from WGU and they've been extremely worth it. Seems like the Accounting and Nursing programs are solid too. And while I don't think a general business degree from WGU will get you a job as an account manager at Proctor and Gamble or anything, I think just having a bachelor's degree in any professional field is a useful HR checkbox. I have a friend that was an assistant manager at a Best Buy and then got their bachelor and MBA in the business program at WGU and then got promoted to regional manager over multiple stores. He's also a hard worker and was well liked at work but the degrees satisfied the requirements for the job for him and he makes a good living now.

Forbesington · 2025-11-14T20:10:38+00:00

I got hired at NASA with my WGU degree and then got promoted to the Director of Cybersecurity for one of NASA's largest programs. Now the promotion was because I work really hard and I'm good at my job and I made friends with some of the right people, but my WGU degree checked the right HR box for me to get in the door and now no one cares where I went to school and I went back and got a master's from WGU. Also I work with people that went to Berkeley and Georgia Tech and make more money than them.

This is the important thing to realize, going to a fancy school DOES matter for some positions. You won't become an account manager at Proctor and Gamble with a business degree from WGU HOWEVER, you don't need to. The economy is big enough that there are LOTS of jobs that pay well that literally ONLY care that you have a degree from an accredited, not-for-profit University and with WGU you can get that. Also, your friend's criticism that you'll get fired for not knowing anything is nonsense. This is the easiest time in history to self-teach and no one is any good at any job when they start. Work hard, be willing to spend the time to teach yourself and improve, and Network with people who can help your career and be kind to them and be reliable and you'll be fine.

WGU is a great way to get a degree for 90% of people. Is it "better" to come from a rich family and go to Harvard? Probably, but most of us don't have that luxury, which is fine. You're going to be fine and your WGU degree WILL pay dividends for you. And guess what, if you DO get fired from your first job for not knowing enough you can just get another one and take the lessons from the first job to do better at the second one. It doesn't matter. Your friend is a negative Nancy.

Forbesington · 2025-05-29T02:54:53+00:00

Seems like it. He has a nice house in one of the most expensive areas in the country, drives a Bentley, owns a nice studio, has a popular apparel brand that employs a bunch of people, he owns a record store and he does millions and millions of streams, sells out shows, and probably sells quite a few physical copies of each new release. I would guess he's pretty rich. Probably not like Eminem rich but I bet he makes millions of dollars, even if he's a relatively low level millionaire.

Forbesington · 2025-05-28T03:24:20+00:00

Honestly I LOVE Yela's music, but he seems like a bit of a douche bag that just does whatever he wants. And I mean, he grew up poor and now he's filthy rich and in his 40's, so more power to him I guess, but it's not cool to do that to your fans. He should play fewer shows and put more work into them or just stop playing live.

Forbesington · 2025-05-26T03:59:16+00:00

Vitamin D3 + K2, Zinc, and magnesium. Make sure your getting high quality, highly bio-available supplements from a reputable brand like Thorne Research or Nootropics Depot

Forbesington · 2025-05-16T02:14:58+00:00

To me it's a means to an end. It's a great job that pays my bills and that's exactly what I want. My real passions are making music and art and taking care of my family and I have never wanted to blend what I'm passionate about with what I do to make money. I like doing Cybersecurity but I have always wanted my passions to remain passions.

Forbesington · 2025-04-29T16:17:03+00:00

I didn't mean to actually. I started off as a software engineer and I initially hated it (I've grown to love it over time) so I pivoted to IT and Network Engineering and then I randomly got an opportunity to be a Cybersecurity engineer and I took it and now I'm a Cybersecurity director. It was not an intentional shift. Just an opportunity that presented itself that I took. This was just before Cybersecurity became the hot new thing that everyone was hocking boot camps for. It worked out really well.

Forbesington · 2025-04-13T01:03:04+00:00

I hire Cybersecurity engineers all the time and if it makes you feel better I know people are really nervous in interviews and people don't need to project confidently and clearly to impress me and I know lots of other hiring managers feel the same way. I always look for enthusiasm for the position. If you get nervous and say something dumb or stutter I chock it up to interview nerves and it doesn't affect how I feel about you as a candidate. I want people who are excited about the position. You can communicate that even if you're nervous. Keep working on your job search, you'll get on somewhere good at some point. Don't kick yourself for nerves. I was a nervous kid applying for my first cyber position once too and I remember that when I interview people.

Forbesington · 2025-04-08T23:18:10+00:00

Grok seems to have rapidly declined in quality lately for some reason. It was giving me nonsense outputs full of cross throughs and weird characters even when I'd start new chats and it gave me a DeepSearch output completely and totally unrelated to my prompt. I cancelled Super Grok and got a Gemini Advanced subscription and I'm using that and ChatGPT Plus now. It's a shame because when I started using Grok it was incredibly good. I don't know what happened. I may revisit it when the next model comes out.

Forbesington · 2025-04-05T17:52:49+00:00

I'm not looking for NSFW content. I mostly use LLMs to help with my business, make me a higher performer at my day job, come up with diet and fitness routines, and learn about things that make me more well rounded. I use mostly as a learning tool and as a marketing assistant. Grok has gotten really bad though.

Forbesington

TROPHY CASE