In 2024, I decided to go back to school and jump fully into IT and cybersecurity with WGU's Cybersecurity and Information Assurance program. It felt like the right time to stop dabbling and actually commit to a real path in tech.
Starting school again after some time away was a mix of excitement and anxiety. But once the classes kicked in and the material started to click, it confirmed that this is where I want to be.
One of the first big milestones on this journey was earning my CompTIA A+ certification, which felt way different compared to the older 901/902 versions people used to talk about. The newer objectives lean more into modern hardware, operating systems, and real-world troubleshooting scenarios.
To prepare, I leaned hard on Professor Messer's free videos, mainly from his YouTube channel and website:
I also used Jason Dion's Udemy courses and practice exams, which helped reinforce the material with lots of hands-on-style questions and detailed explanations:
Now that A+ is done, the next targets on my list are CompTIA Network+ and CompTIA Security+. Network+ will help me lock in how networks really work under the hood, which is crucial for understanding almost any security issue.
Security+ comes after that and is often treated as a baseline cybersecurity certification for many entry-level and SOC roles, so having both gives me a clear roadmap for the next phase of my journey.
On top of the more traditional certs, I've been exploring TCM Security's SOC-focused courses and certifications, which are very hands-on and geared toward real-world blue-team work:
I'm still deciding which TCM certifications I want to commit to long term, but it's motivating to see training that focuses so much on practical labs, real tooling, and workflows similar to what SOC analysts use on the job [web:1][web:5].
One thing that has surprised me the most is how much I'm enjoying the Practical Malware Analysis & Triage (PMAT) course from TCM Security. The course walks through building a safe malware lab, doing static and dynamic analysis, and writing detections and triage reports based on real-world samples [web:6][web:24].
The PMAT course details and enrollment page are here:
Working through those labs has made me seriously consider leaning more toward malware analysis or incident response roles in the future. It's one of those parts of cybersecurity that really grabs my attention and makes me want to keep pushing deeper into the technical side of the field. `
English Translation of Lorem Ipsum
« But I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing of a pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system, and expound the actual teachings of the great explorer of the truth, the master-builder of human happiness. No one rejects, dislikes, or avoids pleasure itself, because it is pleasure, but because those who do not know how to pursue pleasure rationally encounter consequences that are extremely painful. Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure. To take a trivial example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to obtain some advantage from it? But who has any right to find fault with a man who chooses to enjoy a pleasure that has no annoying consequences, or one who avoids a pain that produces no resultant pleasure? On the other hand, we denounce with righteous indignation and dislike men who are so beguiled and demoralized by the charms of pleasure of the moment, so blinded by desire, that they cannot foresee the pain and trouble that are bound to ensue; and equal blame belongs to those who fail in their duty through weakness of will, which is the same as saying through shrinking from toil and pain. These cases are perfectly simple and easy to distinguish. In a free hour, when our power of choice is untrammeled and when nothing prevents our being able to do what we like best, every pleasure is to be welcomed and every pain avoided. But in certain circumstances and owing to the claims of duty or the obligations of business it will frequently occur that pleasures have to be repudiated and annoyances accepted. The wise man therefore always holds in these matters to this principle of selection: he rejects pleasures to secure other greater pleasures, or else he endures pains to avoid worse pains. »