Powering Through

I want to go work on this cool project at my company. Need to jump through some hoops to get prepared. I asked the guys on the team if there were any industry certifications that would help prepare me for the job. They all told me CEH.


Never heard of it. Apparently it stands for Certified Ethical Hacker. Sounds juicy. When needing training, my first stop is my local community college. I was in luck. They actually have a track that ends up getting you prepared for a CEH. Unfortunately it takes a whopping five classes to get you there.


I went to the department chair and asked what I should do. She referred me to the cyber security guy. He told me to start at the beginning with Network+. That class prepares you to pass the CompTIA Network+ Certification. It is entry level. Should be a breeze.


Nope. To start, the class I signed up for was an accelerated one. That means it only meets for half the semester. It is scheduled for two nights a week, four hours a pop. That's not the hard part. The assignments are brutal. I took some short cuts and got through most chapters for the week in a couple hours. The last one took almost 10 hours.


I heard another guy in the class. He works a full time job like me. He said he did all the work, and the last chapter took 20 hours for him. We read a couple chapters a week. Who has time for this? I can only imagine the regular paced classes are not as bad. There is only one thing to do at this point - power through the material.