Staying Current in Technology

Today I registered to take the CompTIA Network+ certification exam. I got about a month and a half left to prepare for it. Currently I am reading a study guide which is not too good. I want to get through it to see if there is anything I can learn from it. Then I move onto a bigger and hopefully better study guide.


This certification is the first on my road to becoming a certified ethical hacker. I want to join a project at work. I talked to some guys on that project. Asked them if there were any credentials that were worthwhile to achieve to get ready to work on their project. They said only the certified ethical hacker.


CompTIA will certify you. But your certification runs out after a few years unless you keep it current. There are a lot of ways to earn credit to keep your certification current. At first I thought this was just a scam to let them make more money off you. That may be true. But the techniques to stay current seem like they are worthwhile.


Here are the things you can do after you earn your certification to qualify to renew it when it expires: get another certification, attend a workshop, publish an article, publish a white paper, write blog posts, write a book, attend a webinar, attend a conference, complete a training course, complete a college course, obtain work experience. There are a few more options such as teaching or creating material for a course.


Those all seem like good ideas to stay current in general. I think I should have no problem keeping this certification current perpetually. Just need to log my progress in learning and I should be good to go.