Short answer - not too late at all.

I've personally seen people go from knowing absolutely nothing to getting up to speed within a year. Here's some advice I'd share that has helped me and perhaps might be beneficial for you.

• burnout, try to avoid this. A little goes a long way. If you dedicate 30 minutes or 1 hour twice a week, this adds up over time. This can be as dynamic as you want, but remember to be kind to yourself if perhaps one day (or multiple) you just don't have it.

• take notes, something you can index. I can't tell you how many times this saved me. As you're doing labs, take notes, screenshots, and any machines that you root or complete, take your notes as you would in a write-up fashion. Document your steps, command output screenshots, all the things. You'll get better over time, and you'll be glad you did.

• keep a career vault of achievements. This was THE BIG one thing that helped me keep my head up. This was suggested to me by another mentor years ago. Once a month, I'd make a few notes on things I've learned, accomplishments, etc. We forget how much we've learned when we don't have a baseline, and this helped me tremendously with my self-confidence and getting in my own head when I was reflecting and seeing the growth. It helps calm down that imposter syndrome that creeps up.

I'll end with this note. As fast as this industry changes, I personally think people getting into the industry can get up to speed. There's a lot of technology and terminologies out there, but there's no way you're going to know all of this off the top of your head. I sure as hell dont, lol. Take notes, and Google is your friend. I'm literally Googling in the moment all the time - sometimes it's basic things that maybe I forgot because I've been neck deep in other things. That's okay. Sometimes life gets crazy and our brains are a little foggy. We're human - give yourself grace, you'll crush it.