Today I passed the Security+. Out of all of my certifications so far, this one was definitely the most difficult. Some of the things I had to study for I was not too interested in (such as management and policy stuff) but as I went over the content more I found out that those subjects are not as boring as I went in thinking they were going to be. I went through an 8 hour-per-day for a week training boot-camp that helped me prepare for the test (it was payed for by my college). While it did help, it was a lot of information all at once. I took my time in getting ready for the test and watched all the videos by Professor Messer. Then I went through some of his free practice questions and watched some of the study guides he livestreams. After all of that content I felt fairly ready, and all I did after was do some practice tests from Jason Dion.
Thoughts on the Test
My thoughts on the certification test are positive for the most part. Some questions were difficult and others were easy. The wording on the questions, as always with these types of tests, can be tricky to someone who hasn’t taken a certification exam before. I can see why this test is required for some IT security jobs as it does make you understand fundamentals and then apply them to situations.
Future Goals
The certifications I am looking at right now are cloud related or networking related. I do have a decent amount of networking knowledge, which is why I haven’t went for a networking certification, but the CCNA seems like a nice way to prove this knowledge to employers. However, my eyes are currently on the Azure Administrator Associate/AWS SysOps Administrator certs. After looking a little into both of these it seems to me, at this point in time, that the AWS one is a better idea for me. AWS has a bit more market share at the moment, and the jobs pay a little more. The platform of AWS is the industry-leader for the cloud which I like as well.
Final Thoughts
The Security+ cert is great for anyone wanting to go into a role in IT security or IT in general. Security knowledge is always good to have, and it will get you an interview for most beginning IT security jobs. This was not my favorite cert to study for, but I am glad that I was able to pass it and that I can move onto a more specialized cert.