this post was submitted on 08 Nov 2023
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Hi everyone! I need some help. I'm in my mid-thirties, and I had a growing career that, since covid, has gotten so flaky I can't properly provide for my family anymore. I have always been interested in tech, and would like to start a career but I'm not sure how to.

Can anyone in the field give me some advice? I don't have much college experience, only did 1 year 17/18 years ago. Looks like I need some sort of college degree, which I'm fine with.

I also saw some online "bootcamp" things... are they good? I would like to do something where I was helping companies be protected from hackers and work from home as much as possible. White hat hacker type of thing... if that's real!

Thank you everyone!

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[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I've got some college but no official degree as well. I did a bootcamp for a CCNA with 0 experience in 2012. It was like learning a foreign language. I had to buy the official cert guide and studied hard for a year, I eventually got the CCNA cert in 2014. After that I kept getting additional Cisco certs, CCNA - security, CCNA - cyberops, and now am working on the CCNP. Once I got my CCNA I was able to get into a help desk position, and have moved up to analyst, and engineer. With each job jump have increased salary 30-50%. Honestly in tech I'd recommend moving around every 1-3 years to get that pay bump.

If you have a good manager, they will recognize that a college degree in IT and security specifically is not really necessary.

Some certs to look at for entry level network security, Cisco cyberops associate or CompTIA security+