Learning plan

Background

My educational background is quite varied. In Ireland education is broken down into levels from 1 to 10. This is referred to the NFQ levels and can be found on the QQI website

Level 3 is the first set of state exams in secondary school. Level 4-6 is the second set of state exams that are used to get into further or higher education. Level 6 to 8 are bachelor degree variations. Level 9 is a masters degree and level 10 is a doctoral degree.

As of right now I have:

• level 5 in Media Studies

• Level 5 in Applied Psychology

• Level 8 in Honours Bachelors degree in Arts in Music and English

• Level 9 in Adult education

Courses I have done

In terms of moving to cybersecurity I have completed

• CompTIA IT Fundamentals

• HarvardX: CS50’s Introduction to Programming with Python

I started with these to get a broad understanding of IT so that I felt comfortable moving to cybersecurity and to identify weaknesses that I had. I also picked the python course because it is a language that I find interesting, it is user friendly and is one of the most desirable languages for cybersecurity. Here is an article about this.

As of right now I am in the middle of CompTIA Security+

What is next?

After I pass the CompTIA Security+, I plan to get CompTIA Cybersecurity Analyst+. After that I am considering the Linux+ and Pentest+. I can get these for free in Ireland. I also plan to do more courses from edx (Harvardx) and some CTF like hackthebox or tryhackme. I will possibly look into some college courses to get a degree in cybersecurity, but that is still not a definite plan

I also plan to build up my portfolio on Github, gaining experience with Python projects and combining it with cybersecurity. I will write about each project, what I learned about it and how I would do it differently