I spent most of my time studying for the Cisco Certified Network Associate last year. In my previous post, I explained my experiences with the exam and why I did not pass. In the end, I was not ready and needed more time. I enjoyed my studies, especially the Boson labs but after that exam, I took some time to reflect on my career and personal development goals for 2022..."What do I do now?".
I thought very hard about what to do after not passing the CCNA exam. Should I go after it again or learn something new? After that exam, I took time off from studying and spent more quality time with my family and friends. With the holidays come and gone I decided to not go for the CCNA just yet. Why? Because I want to learn more about CyberSecurity. I will eventually go back to the CCNA studies but for now I want to focus my learning on something else. Even if I did not pass the exam I still learned a lot and I that is why I am focusing on CyberSecurity. So I did some research, found a video online and went to TryHackMe.com.
Why TryHackme.com? Because I like their content, format, and labs. So I signed up for the CompTIA PenTest+ learning path. Why this? I wanted a place that would provide hands-on experience with applications like BurpSuite, OWASP, Nmap, and more.
Will I go for my PenTest certification exam? Not any time soon because my goal is to learn the content and find my passion through learning. Not that I was not passionate enough with the CCNA but I want to go about this learning path differently and so far it has been great. With TryHackMe I now have hands on experience with Nmap, BurpSuite, and OWASP Zap. Plus, I did a little bit of Advent of Cyber 3 in early December and learned a bit on web exploitation. Why this path?
In general, I am a curious person, I may not be the most technical person but I am a team player and enjoy learning new technologies. Plus I saw a job posting that caught my eye which required experience applications BurpSuite, OWASP, Nmap, and more. So I wanted to learn some more about those applications and PenTesting. That is why I found the CompTIA PenTest+ path in TryHackMe.com.
Will I go back to the CCNA? Yes, absolutely! I will but I want to learn something else that is not Cisco or networking related and that is why I want to focus a bit more on information security. I almost went to Juniper's JNCIA because their exam vouchers are not as much and sometimes provide discounts if you take their online training or practice exam. But when I saw TryHackMe.com I just got hooked. Plus most of their courses are free but if you want to use their virtual machines longer than the allotted time one has to subscribe to their services, which is not priced bad. I am not sponsored by them for this but recommend you take a look at the difference between the free version and the paid version of TryHackMe. Why Subscribe to TryHackMe
My approach this time is not to pass the certification but go through the PenTest exam objectives. During my studies, if I noticed myself interested in taking an exam I will then sign up and schedule a date for the PenTest+. For now, I will do the TryHackMe.com site and learn as much as I can with their labs.
I hope you are all well and have a prosperous new year. Be safe and keep on learning!
