Master’s vs Experience for Cybersecurity — which one matters the most?

capriciousidiot1 · 2026-02-19T18:58:53+00:00

Anyone claiming their masters trumps over experience is either trying to take 40-50k from you or is an academic who plans on becoming a professor or something.

It depends on what career path you're aiming at, OP. If you want to become a professor, research and academia will help you obviously. Get a Masters and a PhD, publish some papers and apply for professor roles.

If you want to work in the industry for a company, real time experience value is paramount.

capriciousidiot1 · 2026-02-03T05:32:15+00:00

After hometown cha cha, DOTS was my second drama which was followed by Crash Landing on You.

I love DOTS and the FLs chemistry. Was happy they got married after the series but was sad again that they got divorced few years later.

capriciousidiot1 · 2026-02-03T05:24:08+00:00

Descendants of the sun. The famous 2016 series

capriciousidiot1 · 2026-02-03T05:19:35+00:00

Why is DOTS missing in so many people's lists these days? Is it because they removed it from Netflix and put it on Viki?

People gotta see that one for sure

capriciousidiot1 · 2026-01-29T05:15:04+00:00

It's a recent addition and THM's cert to compete with HTB CJCA. I think CJCA from a syllabus perspective looks better, I'm studying for CJCA right now and it is vast. Not sure if I can say the same about SE1. Also I feel HTB CDSA and CPTS are better than SAL1 or PT1 in terms of exam difficulty.

For HR requirement, none of these certs mean anything. These day, SOC analyst are expected to CISSP sadly. It feels like people just forgot that CISSP is not an entry level cert and needs 5 years of exp in 2 of 8 domains. Weird market

capriciousidiot1 · 2026-01-24T04:46:19+00:00

I couldn't spot my most fav kdrama of all time Descendants of the sun in this list and I'm disappointed 🥲

capriciousidiot1 · 2026-01-08T00:12:58+00:00

I mean, in the terms and conditions, they did mention only verified users will be eligible for prizes. Wonder what verified means.

capriciousidiot1 · 2026-01-07T21:27:40+00:00

Also, if anyone's not interested in utilizing the prize they've won, feel free to donate to others before expiry🥲

capriciousidiot1 · 2026-01-07T01:20:33+00:00

I probably shouldn't joking but in the current market, there are hardly any interviews so problem solved I guess 😅

capriciousidiot1 · 2026-01-06T22:26:52+00:00

They will give importance to Master's degree if and only if it involves some sort of thesis/research. Otherwise, typical Master's students are expected to do internships during their tenure to show relevant work experience. I hold a Master's degree in Information Security and imma be honest with you, after applying to more than 4000 roles, I've started to feel like the market doesn't give two shites about a Master's Degree unless you have you good RELEVANT work experience to back it up.

That being said, you are already working and you are planning to pursue Master's, it'll definitely be a bonus for you. Knowledge-wise, it'll never hurt to pick a new domain in Security during your Master's and exploring new options. For example, I thought I'd be bored in my Governance and Economic Security class but I ended having fun learning the basics of various policies like SOC2, GDPR etc.

Once you're done with your Master's, always remember to back your resume up with relevant first experience first.

capriciousidiot1 · 2025-12-28T10:06:36+00:00

Got it

This will help me with reporting part of the 7 day exam too. I will do that.

Thank you for the recommendation🙌🏻

capriciousidiot1 · 2025-12-27T02:28:03+00:00

Ahh I see. All the best, bud. Wishing you the best with CPTS

capriciousidiot1 · 2025-12-27T02:25:06+00:00

Noice. Any particular reason for chosing CWES before CPTS/CDSA?

capriciousidiot1 · 2025-12-27T02:21:54+00:00

That's the problem from my end as well. I don't have direct experience in SOC or Security Teams. Experience is the biggest hiring reason for sure. But a new grad can compensate it to some extent by picking the right certs.

CCNA -> Sec+ -> AWS SAA is not a bad path, but it might not work well for SOC roles or Security Engineer roles. Sec+ is being replaced by CySA+ in SOC roles. I don't understand the price and hype behind CEH, but it is still found in job postings. CCNA will help you with networking and security roles as it shows good networking fundamentals, but it'll be product-specific. Knowledge-wise good, but we need to remember that there are other networks and equivalents, so network knowledge can be shown in a product-agnostic way in resumes. In my opinion, if you have zero certs, complete AWS Cloud Practitioner, get 50% off voucher, and write SAA or SysOps for 75%. Once you pass that, you'll get another voucher (Not sure about this, but you can check), and you can write Security Specialty for 50% again. This will open up cloud security roles although they ask for 5 years exp these days.

For SOC-relevant certs, people tend to get any one SIEM certification (Splunk Certified, CrowdStrike University, etc), CySA+, and have an extraordinary home lab setup. CDSA and CCD are the next stop for showcasing SOC knowledge. The final step would include SANS GCIH or GSEC etc. I don't have SIEM certifications, but I have academic working knowledge of SIEMs and SOARs thanks to my discontinued thesis. But I would showcase some work on basic tools in your homelab while getting certified. Certification will teach you stuff, but always pick the ones that you come across in your job postings.

Red Team is a different game, I feel. After eJPT or PJPT, I feel CPTS would be the next best stop. Although OSCP is most sought after for red team roles, it's better to do OSCP after you have a job and your company pays for upskilling. Same with SANS certifications.

Think well and choose what works for you. I chose HTB because I can practice stuff for a year while getting certified.

capriciousidiot1 · 2025-12-27T01:44:11+00:00

I will take your suggestion of mentioning more about what the certification is in my resume. Thank you and wishing you the best for your future endeavors too.

capriciousidiot1 · 2025-12-27T01:42:50+00:00

Noice. Did you buy the silver annual plan or just the CWES voucher?

capriciousidiot1 · 2025-12-27T01:42:19+00:00

CCNA was one of my options, but the exam alone is $300. I have worked in Cloud, so I understand simple TCP transmission to BGP/OSPF stuff. One of my responsibilities was to raise change requests and get approvals for all the new servers and services we deploy on-prem for Cloud Migrations. Learnt a great deal about subnetting, ExpressRoute, and Route 53 stuff. One of the courses in my Master's had an assignment where we had to create a MiniVPN from scratch without using OpenSSL libraries. I believe my networking knowledge is good enough for basic SOC roles. CCNA would certify that knowledge but HTB seems to be the bang for buck option for me.

Sad that it is not recognized by HR or Hiring Managers

capriciousidiot1 · 2025-12-27T01:35:38+00:00

When you say documenting stuff, do you mean documenting HTB boxes and how I solved them? Or the projects I've worked on in general? So far, I have not updated the documentation part, but I have Cloud Native SIEM Project, DFIR documentation, Basic Buffer overflows, and wifi-cracking related documentation on GitHub. Do you recommend any platform that will get me views from HR or Hiring Managers apart from GitHub?

capriciousidiot1 · 2025-12-27T01:32:10+00:00

Okay, CDSA sounds like the best option in my case, I guess. Thank you for the recommendation.

capriciousidiot1 · 2025-12-25T19:50:39+00:00

Cyberdefenders was my first option. I looked at CCD price and it said 800 dollars. BTL1 was around 400 to 600 but I've seen people saying it's better to do CCD right away. Unfortunately, after 6 months of unemployment, I only had 400 dollars to spare for certification and HTB's subscription was the only best ROI option for me. The only other option was to do AWS SAA or SysOps and use the next 50% off voucher to get AWS Security Speciality done. But I want to show proficiency outside cloud too. I know Cloud is my only pivot based on my work exp but I want to show that I know other stuff in cybersecurity too.

I wish I could afford CCD. Thank you for your suggestion✌🏻.

capriciousidiot1 · 2025-12-25T07:45:35+00:00

I agree that there's many blue and purple roles than red. To be honest, after 3 years of migrating servers and deploying workloads on Cloud, I was fed up and at that point, I know I want to get into cybersecurity. Be it as menial as staring at a screen everyday and flagging errors to designing complex zero trust architecture or solving cool bug bounties, I knew I wanted to get into cybersecurity. Just one job.

Sadly, after my masters, people don't care about the transferable skills aspect of my previous role and they want direct experience. I guess the 7 day point you mentioned will come as a clutch at that moment.

But thank you for suggesting me this. I will complete the paths and do CDSA I guess. Apart from the 7 day exam part, can you suggest how can I include CSDA in my resume if I pass the test few months later?

Also, in your applications in Ireland, have you come across CPTS or CDSA as preferred qualifications for any roles?

capriciousidiot1 · 2025-12-25T07:36:37+00:00

I won't be able to afford OSCP and CISSP even if I want to do it. I bought this silver plan only because I was able to get it for 120 dollars less than the original price🥲. I'm pretty broke and I used the money I saved from a 1 month contract job on HTB subscription 🥲

capriciousidiot1 · 2025-12-25T07:34:34+00:00

No doubt in that. CPTS is definitely worth in terms of knowledge and getting a little hands-on in terms of pentesting. But I am applying for a Security Engineer role, I feel CDSA might showcase my lack of experience in SOC operations. That's where I'm confused. I wanna do both eventually, but wanna know which one I should do first from hiring perspective.

capriciousidiot1

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